Broken Wings, Scattered Dust

by Bluesparks

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure
Length: 89591

A weary terror from an urban myth postpones her retirement for one last job at the behest of a friend. The weirdest and least straightforward job she's ever worked on follows--and then her little sister goes and gets herself tangled up in it.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/6QetZoul.png[/img]

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My sister is nuts.

No, Whimsy, not like, nuts, nuts. Crazy. In a good way.

Not everyone saw it that way.

When she was a filly, she was transferred to special education. "She doesn't listen." "She's psychotic." "She's schizophrenic." "She never pays attention."

That's 'cause whatever you're trying to teach her, she's thinking of something more interesting. She doesn't think the way you think she should–ugh–so she's 'broken'.

Lemme tell you something, idiots. My sister is anything but broken.

My sister will change the world, in a big way. There's no one, pony or otherwise, who even comes close. She has ideas that would make Star Swirl's head spin. And when I say 'ideas', I mean she could probably fill an entire library with them and still have plenty left over. I'm not even sure she counts as one artist anymore.

No, my sister's biggest problem is that she's still with me. Because I'm the only one who sees who she is–what she could be–that's still alive. Yeah, I know, laugh it up. But she needs to learn to rein it in–she has, a little–and until then she's only got me to protect and support her. She's learned to behave normally, but it's paper-thin on a good day. Gone at the slightest breeze. Tar', she only does it near me because she knows it drives me crazy, and I can't afford too many distractions.

It's just ironic. I think. I don't know, she's the bookworm. It's just funny that the only one who can protect her is also her biggest vulnerability, because if I ever get caught, it'll be straight to the asylum with her, and goodbye, so long, dreams.

Poor girl. The day you're ready and rid of me can't come soon enough. It can't. And after that…after that I get to find out what really happens after the end…finally.

Well, okay. One last job first, and only because it's you asking, Des'. And because you're asking me to do it for free, which either means you're stupid, bankrupt, or under the belief that the job itself is just worth doing. And if it stops dragons from going extinct, you just might be right.

Might.

— « § » —

[ An original adventure story. Rated Teen for mild profanity and moderate violence. Description above is subject to change as improvements are made. ]

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-27 04:03:03 UTC

[Prelude 1] Pony Up and to the Skies

Preface (Read me first!)

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By Melionos (a.k.a. Bluesparks)

Edited by Daetrin, Longbow73, Kolth, and Rokom

— « § » —

Special thanks to:

Anyone and everyone who’s put up with any or all of my crap

Daetrin, who never left my side

Isrozzis, who’s always there when I need him

Rokom, for too many reasons to list

Daetrin, who was never afraid to speak his mind

RBDash47, for giving me a much-needed lengthy slap in the face with reality

Shaedris and Kortin, for consistently expressing their interest

My mom (don’t look at me like that), for she never stopped believing in me

Valcron, for being there when I need him, and for being an awesome vacuum cleaner as well as an inspiration

Zirusianna, for loving Octavia as much as/more than I do

Daetrin, whose support never wavered

Kaorin, for being inspiring in more ways than one

And lastly, thank you to everyone who is, was, or is not sure if they’re a brony.  You guys are all crazy, but that’s good.  You are changing society for the better, whether you mean to or not.  So, thank you.  And I hope I will see some of you again in a few decades when this fandom is not as well-known, so we can reminisce about the good old days, talk for hours about who is best pony, and eat our pizza before it’s cool.

— « § » —

Few things to note.   Firstly, for those of you who prefer Google Documents, a link to the GDocs Master Table of Contents follows.  It contains links to all released arcs, as well as a link to the changelog.

Google Documents Master Table of Contents

Second, I will be keeping a changelog.  This changelog will be linked at the start of every arc, and will contain the dates that specific changes were made to which arc.  Detail will be given for content or major prose changes.  Minor grammar or spelling errors will simply be labeled "Minor spelling/grammar fixes".

Third, I will be writing each entire arc to completion before any of it is released.  The reasons for doing so are varied, but I mention this solely to warn you that updates will be few and far between.

Lastly, work on this began during the hiatus between S1 and S2.  As a result, a lot of elements are based on canon or fanon from that era, and certain pieces of canon from later seasons are ignored.  I did try and weave in post-S1 canon in where I could, but there is a number of places I couldn't; please bear this in mind as you read.

— « § » —

And one last thing.  If you encounter any spelling or grammar error, inconsistency, or discontinuity, or if you have a question or feedback, do not hesitate to contact me by any of the following methods.  I cannot promise I will always respond, but I can promise I will read every message I receive.

Contact info:

Bluesparkks on deviantArt

Bluesparks on FIMFic

@Bluesparkks on Twitter (be wary, I am very flighty about my usernames on any platform that lets me freely change it)

melionos@gmail.com

And with all of that said, please enjoy!  (Or flame/hate/troll/critique/be indifferent to, whatever makes you happy.)

[P1.1] Paling Storm, Rising Tides

Paling Storm, Rising Tides

My cloud meandered lazily over Draconia, drifting this way and that with the wind’s tides.  I lay atop in a half-daze, soaking in the sun, but I kept the relaxing warmth out of my head.  Retirement wasn’t safety.  Not in my profession, and not by a long shot.  But then again, not much in my profession—if I could even call it that—was all that safe.

As the cloud wandered on, I shifted the winds ever so slightly, feeling them roam free, ushering the cloud eastward, and a peaceful while later a faux-obsidian spire slid into view.  I double-checked to make sure I was not being tailed, then slid off the cloud and coasted downwards, curling around the rising thermals.  I angled myself towards the ledge that eventually crept into view, two specks milling about on its mirror-black surface.

I alighted right on the ledge’s lip a few minutes later and was promptly accosted by two dragons.  The smaller of the two, a snowy-white female, examined me with suppressed amusement, but the verdigris male looked coldly and expectantly down at me, stiff with formality.  I made to speak first—to show my respect—but he, apparently, had other plans.

“Forbearer.”  He lifted his snout and paused, letting that single word shake the ledge and fade into the distance before continuing.  “You have my gratitude.”

I was a little taken aback.  Not that he already knew the job was done, but that he spoke first.  It wasn’t like him to show respect to ponykind.  I saw my surprise reflected in the female’s blood-red eyes, but I swiftly quelled my shock and bowed, no words emerging from my open mouth.  I rose slowly and offered the dragon two matching necklaces, which he gingerly took with a pair of gleaming talons.

“And you, Cavantina.” He turned towards the female, apparently oblivious to my troubles as he turned towards the spire.  “You have earned my trust.”

She bowed wordlessly too; I could feel mirth radiating from her, barely contained.  Fortunately for us, Descant chose that moment to thud back into the spire, presumably to retrieve my bounty, and the female burst out laughing as soon as he limped out of earshot.  I managed only a quiet chuckle.

“Ahahaha, what a sucker,” she said, clutching her chest; I donned my goggles and the illusory dragon melted away, replaced by my little sister, who was laughing heartily.  The faint outline of the white dragon was visible around her, racked with the same frivolity.

“He honestly can’t see through that?” It seemed strange that dragons—magical creatures by nature—would be fooled by Whimsy’s disguise, so either Descant was an excellent performer, or he genuinely didn’t know that his Cavantina liason was all make-believe.  He’d never even think of hiring me unless there was someone—some dragon—who believed I was the right pony for the job.

“Nope!” she said cheerfully, still prancing about.  “None of them can.  Isn’t it great?”

“It is not.”  I frowned at her.  “And stop that.  If they see you...”

Whimsy stopped abruptly and stared in my direction with such ire I almost flinched.  “They won’t,” she said coldly, and the ghost of Cavantina growled in irritation, blowing smoke at me.  We stared at each other for a split-second, then I heard the thud-thud that prefaced Descant’s return.

In an instant, I flipped my goggles up and Whimsy reassumed her draconic guise just as Descant appeared in the archway, bearing a cloth sack.  Apart from the thud of his footfalls, he approached us in complete silence, and I returned it in kind, but Cavantina started humming a quietly upbeat melody, her draconic tones lending it a soft crystalline ring.

If I could’ve managed it without Descant seeing, I would’ve smacked her across the face for breaching protocol, but once again, the lumbering dragon took me by surprise: he started humming too, and not—as I first thought—in unison, but his own, higher melody, resting lightly upon Cavantina’s wavering thread.

Yet as soon as it started, it stopped.  The white dragon cut her thread short, but Descant kept humming, either oblivious or indifferent to her indignance, thudding ponderously back to us.  It was a smart move either way.  If he’d so much as shot a nasty look at Whimsy, he’d have found his face in the floor and his feet in the air long before he could follow it up.  It was a gut reaction I had yet to master; the dragon would only consider violence after all his other options were exhausted.

Descant stopped before us and gingerly set the sack down, then wordlessly unfolded it.  Inside was a small stone box, about the size of his foot and engraved with what seemed to be their language.  I glanced at Cavantina, who’d narrowed her eyes and was frowning at the box, apparently reading it.  She was actually staring slightly to the left of the box, but if Descant noticed, he didn’t show any sign of it.

“I apologize,” he said, laying two taloned claws on the box’s top.  “If your expectations are not met.  There is little left of value I can give.”  He opened the box with a single talon, then lifted something small out of it like one would lift a newborn.  Sunlight glinted off the little I could see, but the rest of it remained obscured by his claws.  I noted with some trepidation that Cavantina’s brow grew more furrowed by the second.  Descant approached me slowly, holding the something with a level of reverence that did not befit any pile of coin.

I tensed as he approached, hiding the motion with a nervous shuffle, but my fear went unrealized.  Descant unfurled his claws and set a pony-sized shortsword at my feet; it took quite a bit of willpower to contain my confusion—surely he’d heard that I hadn’t used a blade?  I couldn’t help but glance up at his golden eyes.  They were downcast, darting this way and that.  Every way but at me.

He seemed equally reluctant to speak, and kept sheepishly nudging the sword towards me with his good leg—handle first—until I picked it up, almost tossing it by accident; it looked a lot heavier than it was.  The scabbard bore the same curling runes as the box and was fitted with cloth straps, presumably to secure around a pony’s midriff.  It unsheathed without a whisper, its single-edge blade glittering menacingly with a stygian reflection of the clouds above.  More jagged runes ran up and down its length on both sides; it was clearly of draconian origin but unmistakably intended for equine use.

Descant was eyeing the sword with a strange look on his face, and I realized that it was the kind of look an artist dons when observing their own creation.  I didn’t know much about volcanic blacksmithing, but it undoubtedly took huge dedication over a long time to create something as elegant as the sword, even for an accomplished smith.  Which made it all the more puzzling that Descant would’ve poured all that time into crafting a sword for a pony.  Equestrian-Dracionian relations weren’t exactly terrible, but we kept our distance, and so did they.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.  I could think of nothing else, but Descant seemed to take it well enough.  He made eye contact with me for about a split second before returning to pawing at the ledge, leaving light scratches behind.  I took the opportunity to sneak a glance at Cavantina, who was staring in the sword’s direction with an intense concentration, the kind that I usually only saw on Whimsy when she was immersed in a story.

“Thank you, Forbearer.”  He tilted his head.  “I hope it is sufficient.”

I wanted nothing more than to smack him across the face and detail why exactly I eschewed bladed weaponry, but behind him, Cavantina was behaving rather oddly.  She pointed at the sword, nodded furiously, then held up two open claws, as if she were trying to stop someone.  More to cover her antics than actually accept his payment, I nodded.  “It is.”

The sword stayed silent as I resheathed it, a relieved Descant watching the whole while, and behind him, Cavantina had returned to swaying and humming quietly.  I secured it to my back and was about to politely bid him farewell when he tapped my shoulder; I instinctively wanted to smack the paw away, for its unforgivable breach of personal space, and for one brief, heady moment, I went deaf from blood thundering through my ears.

“...Oh,” Descant said, taken aback.  I turned around to find him holding one claw as though I’d electrocuted it.  “My apologies.”

I just looked at him expectantly.

“I was going to ask if...perhaps I could interest you in another job,” he continued.

“No thanks.”  I turned around abruptly.  “I’m retiring.”

“Wait!” he said desperately.  A light gust blew across my neck; he’d reached out to tap me again, but apparently thought better of it.  “This one’s...different.”

I scoffed, looking out towards the distant Equestria and unfurling my wings.  “I’m retiring.”

“It’s...just an offer. ”  He took a breath that seemed to last about three minutes.  “...But there is no payment.”

I was abruptly buffeted by a blast of cold wind, ruffling my mane and whistling as it played through Descant’s motionless scales.  I didn’t turn to face him, but neither could I still see the landscape; everything but the wind seemed to seize up, hanging on Descant’s next words.  It was all I could do to wait and hear him out.  What kind of job worth nothing is worth doing?  Charity?  But if it was that, why ask me?

There was a very slight scraping sound from behind me—I tensed again—but nothing else came, no other signs of subterfuge.  After a short pause, Descant spoke again, sounding hesitant.   “How much do you know...about dragons?"

I’d’ve glowered at him if I’d been facing him, so the distant mountains were treated to my scornful gaze instead.  “Enough.”

Descant shuffled backwards, a brief flash of fear radiating from him; I’d let more irritation into my voice than I’d intended.  He was asking for something I’d put a lot of time into, and retired or not, bandying my knowledge about would invariably land me in places I’d much rather not be.  But...

“Sorry,” I said, finally turning to face him.  “But I can’t say.”

Descant carefully peered down at me, golden eyes glowing faintly, and after a moment, an expression of understanding flitted across his visage.  Or rather, that’s what it looked like—having a face made of scales didn’t really facilitate facial expressions.  I stared right back, keeping my face as level as I could, waiting for him to respond.

But he didn’t, for what seemed like half an hour, but was only a few seconds.  It’d just started to rain when he moved again; he motioned for Cavantina to leave, and she obliged, still humming and flexing her talons so they wouldn’t scratch the obsidian.  We both watched her go, the cool rain tinkling against Descant’s scales and soaking my feathers.

“I’m listening,” I prompted him when she’d vanished into the spire.  At the very least I would learn what would push him to ask me to help for free—I needed money, not another sword or something that I’d have to sell for money.  Precious few would buy without asking how I’d come by such curios; I was not a regular contact of any one of them.

Descant took his time answering.  He thudded this way and that, turned to the ledge’s tip and regarded the landscape with a solemn silence, tapped his claws against the ledge, paced some more, then repeated the routine for what seemed like several minutes.  He didn’t seem concerned that his antics might aggravate me; at one time they might’ve.  Patience was not always a virtue I could muster; for now, I was content to feel the rain on my back and the wind weaving itself into my mane.  I could outpace almost every pegasus I’d ever met, but no matter how fast I went, it never felt the same as standing in the wind.

It felt like I was soaked to the bone when he finally turned to face me.

“You must think I’m insane,” he said carefully.  I just looked at him, so he went on hesitantly, the words dribbling slowly at first.  “This job...is a pressing matter for many, but those whom it concerns cannot perform it, and those who can perform it, it does not concern.”

Descant took a moment to contemplate the rain clouds, so I filled in:  “Dragons and ponies.”  He was giving off distinct impression that he was steadily growing more and more uncomfortable, and watching him twist his insides into ever more intricate knots was starting to hurt me.

“Indeed.  You are aware of the rift between us, I presume?”

“A little.”  Whimsy knew more about them than I did, but I’d had my fill of encounters with his ilk.  “Only what I need to know,” I amended.  “Or needed, rather.”

His eyes gleamed with a hint of something strange, but he inquired no further.  “Then let the truth be known; we are dying.  In one year, or with luck, two, there will be no dragons.”

The last two words reverberated around my head like so many church bells, echoing inside my head, drowning out any coherent thought.  I’d never heard of dragons dying before; they were, by all accounts, immortal.  Yet here he was, asking me to combat extinction, but...assassins were the go-to for ending lives, not saving them, and especially not saving hundreds or thousands or however many dragons there were.

“I ask because there are few of your discipline and skill in...execution.”  The corners of his mouth curled, and I again had to resist the urge to smack him.  “Even fewer of your resolve, but most importantly, you are here and not imprisoned.  If I am to entrust this job to someone—excuse me, somepony—I want to be absolutely sure that it will be carried out with all due secrecy.”

I understood, even if I hadn’t agreed.  “There are others better suited to saving lives.”

Descant merely shook his head.  “You misunderstand me.  The task is not saving dying dragons.”  He took another long breath, his eyes drifting out of focus.  “We are...bound to the Earth.  Chained to the natural tides of magic.  The Earth gives us our power, our fire, but...sometime in the past year, that flow started weakening.  How soon it will vanish, I don’t know, but I can...feel it waning.  Our days are numbered.  I wish only to know why.”

And I went right back to confused.  “So...why me again?  I’m no unicorn.”

“You’re no stranger to magic, either,” he said, giving me a sideways glance paired with an unsettingly knowing grin that sent tremors running along my back.  Did he know?  And if he did...how?

“...No, I guess not,” I said quietly, after a moment.  His shrewd grin disappeared as swiftly as it’d come, replaced by his usual peculiar mixture of fluid timidity and soft-edged severity.  The rain thickened, its beats on the obsidian ledge escalating from a soft drizzle to a heavyset drumming, and several pure-white flashes pierced the sky off in the distance.  We turned involuntarily as one to watch the bolts weave their jagged threads between earth and sky, a mute, shared reverence in the face of nature’s impetuosity.  A long while passed before he spoke again.

“I ask you...because the magic that has touched you...” He drew another extraordinarily long breath, punctuated by the faint roar of thunder, miles away.  “It is the same magic that touches us.”

One of my eyebrows rose up in cold skepticism, but it fell as a stinging memory danced across my vision.

The Earth bellowing its anger in fiery pillars of lava and ash, blotting out sun and sky.

Two shadows, circling each other, locked in a spiral, falling down...down...down...

Burning heat, sweltering fumes, smoke and ash, too hot, too hot...

I pushed it away, and the ghostly plumes of fire dissipated.  Descant’s eyes were fixed on me, an odd sort of concern twisting his face into the cruel facsimile of a smile.  Neither one of us flinched as I met his gaze.  “Is that so?”

Descant’s levity disappeared.  “There is no reason to lie,” he said flatly, with such startling conviction that the rain itself seemed to hang in the air.  “But I can explain no further unless you accept.”

I hemmed and hawed, keeping my face impassive, but inside my mind was racing.  I had no obligations or commitments to anyone besides Whimsy and myself.  I didn’t owe anypony anything.  The ‘law’ would’ve liked to take me in, but it had done me no service.

I had more than enough to retire and sustain myself, but the real issue was if it’d be enough to sustain me and Whimsy until she could find her own calling.  At this point, I’d be fine with sacrificing creature comforts if it meant I never had to take another life, but it was perfectly possible that I could sacrifice everything and it still wouldn’t be enough.  There was no planning for how expensive being blind could be, even if she had her coping mechanisms.

I’d’ve had no problems taking that risk if it were just me, but I had a sister to take care of.  Nothing was worth leaving her to chance.  That, and I’d never hear the end of it if she found out I’d turned down a chance to help the dragons.

It’d be a damn nice change of pace, I had to admit.  From the little Descant had told me, it would certainly be a more as-we-go sort of job, instead of the usual rigidly scheduled and tightly planned rigamarole.

It might even be like...retirement.

Hah.

I opened my mouth to speak just as another bolt, dangerously this close this time, blasted down from the clouds, bathing the spire’s tip in a blinding glow.  “I’ll try,” I said, after its reverberations subsided.  “On one condition.”

I took a breath.

“You must be prepared at any time to take care of...somepony for me.  If I lack the funds, or if something happens to me...they will find you.  You are to care for them as you would your own.”

He almost objected, but after an apparently lengthy internal debate, thought better of it.  “I understand,” he said, returning to his normal, soft-thunder tone.  “And I accept.”  He scritched at the ledge for several moments, then pulled a yellow gemstone out.  I’d never thought I’d see a dragon eating a gem quietly, but if anyone I knew was mild-mannered enough to pull it off, it was Descant.  It sounded like he was eating a saltine.

“The first thing,” he said between bites, “is that yes, the same magic touches us both, but its alterations differ.  Whereas you have your...gift,” he nodded graciously, "we are bound to the elements.  At birth, a shard of elemental magic binds to us, whatever element is most prominent in our vicinity.  Dragons born in or near volcanos, naturally, inherit the gift of fire.  Others inherit more...unusual gifts.”

Descant finished off the gem, drew another long breath, raised his head until his neck was completely vertical, and with the unmistakable booming roar of thunder, he bellowed a white-hot bolt of lightning, arcing skyward until it breached the clouds and vanished as soon as it’d come.  Keeping my jaw attached was no small effort; I could evade dragon fire, sure, but not dragon lightning.  It was good Descant didn’t hate me, but he couldn’t be the only one with that particular element, and running into a less amiable lightning-breathing dragon was far from impossible.

“I never knew.”  My voice sounded pathetically weak in the thunder’s aftermath.  I had spent no small amount of time in the presence of dragons, but I had only ever seen fire-breathing.  Until now.

“You understand why we guard such a secret,” he said carefully, and I nodded wordlessly.  “We dragons are creatures of magic, just as ponies are, and it is from that connection that we inherit that gift.  But while we enjoy a connection to the elements, you enjoy a connection to the souls of yourself and of others.”  He smiled toothlessly.  “You can be friends with ponies and animals in a way that no dragon ever could, thanks to the Starweaver and the Progenitor.

“Our magic comes from the same beings as yours, and—”

“No,” I cut in sharply.  “My magic comes from a place, not from any creatures.  The place where—”

“—magic roams free and follows no path but its own?”  A smug little grin twisted the dragon’s mouth.  “Who do you think put it there?  Who do you think keeps it from leaving that place?”

I said nothing.

“Those dragons go by many names, but none, I think, that you know.  The place where they they stand guard, however, you know as the Eyrie.”

The name filtered into my mind like an ice-cold trickle of water; I shivered uncontrollably, and it had nothing to do with the rain.

“But even they get their magic from someone deeper, someone who created and shaped everything from the very beginning, when all was turmoil until her divine spark ignited it, and it exploded into the world, into the universe.  Her name is Lucifa, and it is to her that we owe our eternal gratitude, but...”  He bit his lip, the rain still battering down upon us both.  “Some time ago she vanished, and...”

The last words got caught on the way out, so I finished it for him.  “You’ve been declining ever since.”

Descant looked upwards again.  “Yes.”

“So I’m to go find this...goddess.”

“Yes,” he repeated, lowering his head.  “The Mother is fleeting even at the best of times.  She has not been seen by dragons for several months, but every now and again, we catch word of a pony who has.”  Shivers rattled his scales ever so slightly.  “That Lucifa may have abandoned us is an...unpleasant thought to consider.”

“And you want me to bring her back.”

“Some do, others don’t.  I?”  He downed the last of the gemstone—I could’ve sworn I heard it clanking down his throat—and breathed deeply.  “I merely want the truth.”

“The truth.” I echoed.  “The truth is not always pleasant.”

“‘Tis not, but if my time is soon, then I would be comforted knowing that the Mother watches over us, however far away.”  His eyes glazed over, so I cleared my throat, and they sharply returned to focus.

“Where do I start?”

“There is a shrine to the north, about two days’ flight from here, in an open field, in the center of a ring of six trees.  There was a dance, of sorts, and afterwards, Lucifa used to appear there, a few times a year, and we would celebrate her gift to all of us.”  His eyes drifted out of focus again.  “Mother refused all our gifts, she was so humble...”

Glassy-eyed nostalgia was my first bloodless victim on this new venture; I none-too-gently smacked Descant right across his foreleg, and he snapped out of it.

“Apologies.”  He withdrew a small compass from the sack and offered it to me.  “Please, take it.  You will find more use for it than I.”

I took it uncertainly, surreptitiously feeling the beveled wooden edges for any traces of subterfuge.  There were none.  I flipped it open, then closed, then open, then closed again.  Descant undoubtedly knew that, as a dragon, possessing a compass meant either he had close pony friends, or he had his claws in something besides assassinations.  Compasses were impossible to come by for the general populus.  Ponies and dragons.

“Thanks.”  I’d always oriented myself purely by landmarks and stars, so it was a welcome gift, if not entirely necessary.  It clipped comfortably onto the sword’s harness, and I turned around, the rain rolling off the sheathe.  “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Descant said nothing.  I waited for what seemed like hours, but he didn’t do so much as fidget; after a while, I spread my wings and waited some more.  If he hadn’t had the limp, I would’ve thought he’d just disappeared.

But when I dropped off the ledge and floated towards the treetops, the temptation to look back became overwhelming.  I chanced a glance backwards; the emerald head of a soft-spoken dragon was poking over the ledge’s lip, silently contemplating me with two shimmering, molten-gold eyes.

[P1.2] Nothing Left but Dreams and Lies

Nothing Left but Dreams and Lies

Rain continued to pound down for several hours.  I was beyond soaked and beyond caring; I found the canopy-hidden clearing, plopped myself down on the dewy grass, closed my eyes, and before I knew it, night had fallen.  The leaves above me were still rustling in the wind and rain, but one patch of stars that poked through the cloud cover kept blinking in and out of view, a fact that soldiered through my exhaustion and incessantly prodded me until I shouted at the void.

“Hey,” I said blearily, voice almost lost in the rain.  “Stop blocking the stars.”

The void shifted slightly after a moment.  “Holy crap, someone’s awake.”

“Quiet, you.”  Sleep weighed down my eyelids, but I kept them open.  I was still soaking wet, but Descant’s...request kindled a tiny fire in my chest that could not be doused.  I finally had a real chance to do something genuinely good—though just the thought of labeling it 'redemption' left a disgustingly bitter taste in my mouth.  “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

Whimsy huffed indignantly but said no more, and with her silent again, sleep easily overtook me once more.  It was still raining.

— « § » —

I awoke to the early threads of birdsong, winding their way through the upper branches, intertwining with the dawn’s sunbeams, and for a while, I just lay there, watching a tiny regiment of ants march their way past minefield of dewdrops.  Nature never ceases to amaze.

They followed each other in a single, unbroken line, and after a bit of weaving in and out of exposed roots, they reached what I recognized as a vanilla orchid, undoubtedly for the plant’s sugary treat.  The flower had the same soft, sweet scent as it always did; I reached out and plucked one—without ants on it—inhaling deeply.  I never could explain it, but the fragrance had always been one of my favorites, a sentiment the forest apparently shared; I heard it, felt it breathe as I did.

I picked up a small pebble and tossed it upwards, and as I’d suspected, it hit something that was not wood.  “Nice try,” I said without looking up.

“Phoo,” said a hidden Whimsy, dropping out of the branches and landing clumsily on the forest floor.  “I give up.”

“Well sorr-ee.  I can’t help it, and I think it’s good I can’t.”

“I know,” she said dejectedly, and she started kicking dew off the undergrowth.  I returned to our designated tree, pulled on my goggles, and located the small cavity where we’d stored our food and belongings.  As I shrugged off the sheathed blade, Whimsy appeared behind me with little more than a whisper to announce her presence.

“Here.”  I gave her a couple of apples, which she took up and nibbled on, leaning against a tree.  Mine didn’t last nearly as long—hunger’d gotten the jump on me this time.  “So,” I began, but Whimsy interrupted, sounding profoundly disappointed.

“He had another job for you.”

“Not exactly,” I said, knowing the phrase’s ambiguity would stop her from complaining.  “He gave me something to do, but he’s not paying me for it.  Hang on.”  I put a hoof on the sword, which she’d been sidling towards.  “Lemme finish first.”

“Aww, o-kay.”  She went back to gnawing at the apples with a new effort to pout at the same time.  The end result was difficult to not laugh at.

I forced my face to stay straight.  “Descant says the dragons are dying.”

Whimsy didn’t even look up.  “So he wants you to...”

“Find this Goddess.  Luc....Luci...”

“Lucifa.”  Whimsy’s head tilted, her sightless eyes drifting to the side.  “Their Goddess, and if the ancients aren’t completely off their rocker, our true Goddess, too.”

I scoffed.  “Our Goddess?  Last I checked, it was Celestia and Luna that cycle day and night and keep Equestria in order, not some flighty...whatever she is.”

“She’s an alicorn, just like the Princesses,” she retorted angrily, brows furrowed into a sharp V that looked so much like my own mane that I almost burst out laughing.  “Prin.  Cess.”

“Sure.”  The word sounded as nonchalant as usual, the noncommital yes coming through in all its nebulous glory.  “Sure,” I repeated.  Celestia and Luna might raise the sun and moon, but any respect I had for them was severely dulled by two facts; first, they had legions of guards when they’re clearly more than capable of protecting themselves, and second, none of their agents had caught me.

Whimsy’s head tilted in her little withering way, a gesture that left no doubt as to what her expression would be if she wasn’t blindfolded.

“Look,” I said calmly.  “If they catch me, I’ll call them Princess, but until that day, no thanks.”

She stuck her tongue out at me.  “Suurre.”

“Anywho.  We’ve got to go to this shrine north of here; a few days’ flight, so probably about a week on lan—”

I stopped abruptly as a very distinctly unnatural sound of rustling leaves reached me, punctuated by soft, earthen thuds, and Whimsy cocked her ears, too.  “I’ll bet you a hundred bits I can get us there faster,” she said between the thuds, which had grown almost imperceptibly louder and were now visibly rustling the nearby branches.  I tensed reflexively, but my mind stayed relaxed; Whimsy could identify threats further away than I could, and she was merrily climbing the trees once again, the sword strapped snugly to her back.  I scooped up the compass before she could fall on it.

“I’ll take that bet,” said a familiar voice, slow, deep, measured, and Descant emerged from the trees.  I found I wasn’t surprised at all to see him, but he didn’t seem all that surprised to see me accompanied by a blindfolded unicorn, either...

“Nice to see you, too,” I said dryly.

“Same.”  He inclined his head, then turned to Whimsy, who cut him off.

“No fair,” she pouted.  “I didn’t offer it to you.”

“Neither was the sword intended for you,” Descant pointed out, brows fractionally raised in irritation.  Whimsy wasn’t cowed in the least.

“She ain’t gonna use it,” she pouted.  “And it—looks cool.”

I frowned and Descant bowed deeply, but I wiped the frown off my face before he rose again.  “Thank you,” he said.  “If she has no complaints, then neither do I.”

“I’m right here,” I grumbled.  “But yeah, I’m not gonna use it.”  He didn’t need to know about my garrote, although I wasn’t sure how much use it’d be against him anyways, if the need for that ever arose.  Whimsy might as well learn how to properly defend herself with something besides her magic, and even I had to admit, she looked much more threatening than normal with the sword, albeit in a very peculiar way.  Almost...profound.

Descant turned to me.  “I apologize, but my presence to you has always seemed as dust in the wind.”  His expression hardened, crystallized, somehow transparent yet unreadable.  “A nuisance.”

“I’ve a lot on my mind,” I told him.  “And not much time to contemplate it.”

“Ah.”  He took another colossal breath, and for a while, didn’t speak.  I watched the morning dew drip from the canopy, a feeble shadow of last night’s downpour.  “I cannot fathom your mind, Forbearer,” he said evenly.

“What, and I can fathom yours?”

Descant peered down at me carefully.  “I should think not.”

We stared at each other.

“All right, all right, break it up.”  Whimsy dropped down between us, stumbling slightly on the undergrowth but managing to stay upright.  She was getting better, I had to admit.  Maybe all the treetop frolicking was actually doing her some good.   “Time’sa wastin’,” she said to Descant.

“Perhaps.”  The dragon flattened himself on the ground, and Whimsy clambered up onto his back, forelegs feeling around for Descant’s spikes.  I hesitated, then climbed up behind her, silently grateful.  We would’ve lost a lot of time had we gone on hoof or if I’d tried to fly us there.

“Apologies,” Descant said again, unfurling two massive, leathery wings. “I meant to offer to fly you yesterday.”

“Forgot?”  I cinched the saddlebags around my stomach and double-checked the clasps as Descant took off.  Quite gracefully, considering his wingspan.  I tucked the ends of Whimsy’s blindfold in before they started slapping me.

“I...”

“No, no,” Whimsy reprimanded me.  “It’s pronounced thank you.”

“That goes without saying.”

She ignored me.   “Why, thank you, Descant,” she simpered.  “Ever so kind of you to help us along and save a week of our time.”

“Thank me when I get you there alive.”

“Oh,” said Whimsy.  “Well then.  I guess I can live without a limb or two.”

I got the feeling Descant would have stared her down had he been able to look backwards.

“I’m not going to eat you,” he said, completely serious.

“Explain,” I said sharply.

Whimsy held a hoof out, letting the slipstream beat against it.  “Savior of the Dragons is a pretty impressive title, don’cha think?  And it’d be a pretty nice section in a history book. Y’know, being all about how you saved the entire race of dragons from extinction.”

“Quite,” said Descant.  “Glory is a fickle beast, one that many do not wish to share.  Much less with a…pony.”

“Hmm.”  I scratched my chin, and Whimsy shifted slightly in response to the stiffened air.  She’d always said that dragons looked down upon ponies, but she’d never found out why Descant appeared to lack such prejudices.  It was a little curious, admittedly, but I was more concerned with not getting on the wrong side of a draconic employer than finding out why he didn’t seem to hate me.  “Well,” I said, trying to get the feather to lay flat.  “As long as I don’t have to deal with too many dragons.”

“I can guarantee nothing.”

“Aww, come on,”  Whimsy turned around.  “Don’cha wanna see all the pretty dragons?  I bet they come in some really nifty colors.”

“No thanks,” I said bluntly, raising my voice above the wind.  “I’ve already seen a dragon breathing lightning.”

Whimsy seized up slightly, and I instantly knew why; was she or was she not supposed to know Descant’s element?

“Exactly,” she said after a barely noticeable pause.  “I’d love to see a dragon, like...I dunno, breathe spaghetti or something.”

Descant snorted, and my stomach dropped as we dipped briefly.  “I’m afraid that’s not quite how it works,” he said, once he had stabilized himself.

“What, you guys are only good for tomato sauce?” said Whimsy, completely unfazed.  “Lame.”

Silence fell between us as Descant breached the cloud layer’s underside, enveloping us in a thick mist.  The fading sunlight glinted off the puffy white peaks, and as we flew on, the first of Luna’s stars pierced the sunset’s swathes of pink and orange.  Faintly at first, but within minutes they were clearly visible against the ever darkening sky.  Yet the breathtaking sight of Luna’s veil being drawn over us was somewhat dampened by the blind unicorn sitting in front of me.

Whimsy turned around and punched me.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“I know that sigh,” she scolded, with a frowny mouth that forcibly reminded me of Holly’s.  “I thought we were done with this.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be,” I said darkly, watching the back of Descant’s head.

“Sorry, what’d you say?” he said hoarsely.

“Nothing,” we chorused innocently; he snorted in disbelief but inquired no further, tilting into a shallow dive.  I stared at the departing sun, imagining the twin sisters swapping shifts like any guards would; it was gone long before Descant took us back under the clouds, and we were plunged into a starless darkness.

“Wow,” said Whimsy, clearly awestruck; I strained my eyes, but I could see nothing in the darkness, and the only sounds were Descant’s heavy wingbeats and the rushing air.

“You dolt.”  Whimsy huffed, turned around, and pulled my goggles down.

Through the crystal lenses a forest was revealed, every tree a strange sort of stout, mushroom-looking mutant.  The transition from trunk to branches to leaves was completely seamless, and they filled every visible part of the valley.  Surrounding the forest was five small mountains, all varying sizes.

“Dracaena,” said Descant.

"Hm?”

“Dragon trees,” Whimsy hissed.

We circled around for a short while before Descant took us down to a ledge on the tallest mountain, landing with a quiet thud.  Whimsy immediately wriggled free of the spines and slid off; I followed after giving her a moment to get out of the way.  The snow was powdery, but did not melt at my touch.

“Rest,” said Descant, and I felt weariness resurface at the word.  “I will watch.”

“Rocks,” Whimsy grumbled, carving out a small fort for herself.  “I hate rocks.”  She looked oddly out of place lying on the ground instead of nestled in tree branches; I knew she wouldn’t sleep well tonight, but she seemed determined to not complain.  “Aren’t you tired?” she asked the dragon towering over her.

“Not enough.”  Descant swiveled one golden eye towards her, neck stiff.  She was already drifting off.

“If you say so,” she mumbled sleepily.  I glanced furtively at Descant, who was gazing skywards.  If it were anyone else, I’d’ve tied them down without a second thought, but the green dragon had long since proven his pacifism.  I found myself tired, but not sleepy.  Not yet.

“I need to speak to you,” I said, trying not to sound pushy.  It was imperative I get a few answers out of him, but the more freely they were given, the better.  A mangled answer would be just as bad as no answer.

“You are.”  He didn’t look down, but I pictured him smirking.  I just waited silently, and after a moment, he looked at me.  “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” I said bluntly.  “It needs to be in private.”

He nodded towards Whimsy’s sleeping form.  “She’s asleep.”

“And she’s blind,” I added.  “She may not see with her ears but I’ll be damned if they aren’t sharper than ours.”

“I see.”  He extended a leg towards me, and I climbed up.

“No funny business.”  I rapped a scale meaningfully, letting a tiny spark loose.  “These can’t protect you.”

Descant chose to rocket skyward rather than respond, and I couldn’t entirely blame him.  I wasn’t so much threatening him as I was warning him of my instinctual response to funny business, but it was an awfully puny dividing line.

“Speak.”  The dragon’s voice sliced right into the core of my thoughts, and it took me a moment to reorient myself.  Time for answers.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I said flatly.  He didn’t reply right away.

“I imagine,”  Descant said carefully.  “Exactly what you aren’t telling me.”

He was flying us in circles around the summit, just above the cloud ring.  Every revolution, when I knew Descant wasn’t looking, I fervently checked the ledge for the tiny dark spot that was Whimsy.

“I know that.”  I didn’t bother clarifying what I meant by that.  “But save the dragons is a pretty weak instruction.  You know how I work.”

“And I would accommodate you if I could.”  His tone left little room for suspicion.  “You must understand, some have dedicated their lives to performing those three words.  I am not one of them; I will not impede nature’s will.  I just want to know why.”  He paused.  “But I am certain you will meet some of those zealots.”

My brow crinkled at the word some.  The way he said it was the way one sounds when there’s imminent catastrophe.

“Explain.”

Descant again seemed reluctant to answer.  For three revolutions he did almost nothing but sigh wistfully, and more than once I saw him look up to where the stars lay hidden more than once.  If he was expecting me to talk, he had the wrong pony on his back.  If he was waiting for me to slide off and fly next to him, he still had the wrong pony on his back.

On the close of the third revolution, we were graced briefly by a shimmering moonbeam, cleanly piercing the cloud.  Descant seemed to draw strength from the silvery threads, for at long last, he spoke.

“Our descent...the dragon’s descent...it began at an inopportune time.  About four years ago, we noticed our fading bonds and discovered Lucifa had left us.”

He took another revolution in silence.

“About two decades before that, we suffered a...calamity, of sorts.  We found ourselves irreparably divided, gaping rifts torn between friends, families.  Dragons that once called each other close filled the gap with disgust and the refusal to understand.  These wounds have not healed.”  He swiveled around to share one brief look with me, and it spoke volumes.  What could possibly have been so bad, so horrific, so completely and utterly divisive, that even the doom of imminent extinction could not reunite them?

Descant sighed.  “You will find the truth behind the calamity in time.”

I said nothing, mind still churning through possibility after possibility of what the calamity could have been.  Images of devastating thunderstorms, abnormal volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, earthquakes darted past my vision as swiftly as a hummingbird comes and goes, all their causes unknown.  Perhaps a dragon had triggered something...?

“Three things,” he said, shunting my thoughts aside as he drifted into a spiral that took us back to the ledge.  “First, expect no help from dragons, especially not from me.  Second, do not dwell on the calamity.  Finding Lucifa comes first.  And third...”  He grimaced, bent down his snout, and plucked a small emerald dragonscale from his tail.  “You will need this.”

“What for?”

“You will know.”

I tucked the scale into my bags.  “Speaking of which, we need a safe phrase for my...condition.  So you know it’s her, and you know I’m...indisposed.”

Descant took his time mulling it over.  “‘The silver nimbus yields.’”

“That’ll do,” I said, memorizing the four words as he alighted on the snow without making a sound.  The phrase was innocuous enough, but Whimsy would never forgive me for entrusting her to someone besides myself; she hated being reminded that she still had maturing left to do.

I clambered down and scraped out a little niche for myself in the snow, next to the sleeping unicorn.  My exhaustion finally caught up, and I suddenly found it very difficult to keep my eyes open.  Whimsy did always have this odd tendency to lead others, even when she wasn’t trying to.  Part of her charm, I guess.

“G’night,” I mumbled to nobody in particular, not even bothering to take off my goggles.

Descant’s blurred outline appeared to have returned to watching the sky.  “Rest well.”

[P1.3] Paper Silver Moon

Paper Silver Moon

I woke up to the distant sound of birds chirping, the warmth of the soft morning sun, and light, vaguely metallic scraping; nothing but peace and tranquility, for once.  At least until I opened my eyes and was thoroughly blinded by the sun; I’d left my goggles on overnight.

I hastily scooted them back up, then looked around.  The scraping sound was Descant shifting around on the rock, examining his left foreleg.  For one brief moment of morning insanity, I entertained the thought of asking him what had handicapped him.

“Morning,” yawned Whimsy, almost indistinguishable from the snow.  I wouldn’t’ve believed her if it weren’t for the golden rays filtering through Descant’s spines; her waking up at a reasonable hour was about as likely as me waltzing into Canterlot without getting arrested on the spot.

“Morning,” I said tersely, springing up.  We were wasting time, something Descant was apparently acutely aware of; he had already flattened himself and was waiting for us to climb on.  I obliged, then helped a groggy Whimsy up, giving her an apple in the process.

“How’re we doing?” she said, nodding at my saddlebags.

“About a dozen left.”

Her head fell the tiniest fraction.

“I know.  I’ll stock up before we go, but...”  The rest of the sentence died off as Descant took to the skies.  She knew what I meant; we could count on nothing, and it was more than likely we’d end up stuck with nothing but grass to eat more than once.  It bothered her more than me.

“Phoo,” she pouted.  “Grass sucks.”

“Not as much as starving to death.”

She fell silent after that.  I glanced backwards at the mountain we’d slept on, and the forest nearby, already cloaked in a fog that was rolling in.  I smelled the onset of rain as Descant, took us above the clouds in silence, the landscape below falling out of sight.  A couple of stinging slaps reminded me to tuck the ends of Whimsy’s blindfold in.

My sense of time melted away in the unfiltered sunlight.  I rarely flew above the clouds, and now that I wasn’t completely exhausted, the breathtaking sight of an inverted ocean with a carpet of cotton stole what little wind I had.  It was the kind of thing you’d expect to see on a postcard.

I guess Descant settled into his own rhythm, too, because he started humming again, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of air.  It was a slow, ponderous thing, a rhythm that yielded to nothing, not even his own wingbeats.  Whimsy’s voice drifted back to me, mingling freely with the dragon’s lucent threads.

“On wings of green we glide

All around, the sunset skies

Two sisters, one

What’s left undone

Fest’ring storms may yet arise.”

I knew better than to stifle one of Whimsy’s songs.  I’d tried before, and I had the scar to prove it.  Luna knows where she gets it from.  Probably all the stories she makes up.

Then, much to my surprise, Descant opened his maw and took over the vocals; after a brief moment, Whimsy picked up his melody.  Her voice admittedly sounded much weaker than his, but he pressed on, undeterred.

“One night, one day, a secret lost

Was all it took to rend us ‘sunder.

Starlight shadows, morning frost

Filled chasms t’brim with fiery thunder.”

I found myself shivering.  A quiet note of intrigue tinted Whimsy’s humming, which piqued my interest almost as much as the music; this could hardly be her first encounter with dragonsong.

”Blood of earth, breath of sky

Rifts and ruin, we cannot mend.

Flow of ocean, mountains cry

On horizon lies our end.”

The lonely wind whistled past, and the sun crept ever higher, but I could hardly process its position with my ears full of this strange blend of a humming pony and a lyrical dragon.  Whimsy spontaneously started coloring her voice with hints of Cavantina; the result was a spellbinding dance of timid thunder and quirky charisma.

“One being, one soul, from earth arose

Given a curse, a blessing, was she.

With ruthless heart of gold, she goes

To rejoin that which cannot be.”

Unmistakable sorrow tinged his quiet, rumbling voice now, and it clamped my heart and mind in a vice that refused to let go, encasing me in exactly the kind of empathetic, piercing grief that crippled most.  Whimsy’s horn was lightly glowing, and faint waves of magic twisted and curled in front of and around her hooves, pulsing gently in time with the song.

“The light, the truth, it dawns

Sears a scar that ne’er fades.

Mother, father, faith foregone

To th’night she turns, betrayed.”

My hooves were clenched so tightly to Descant’s scales that I was surprised to find they weren’t bleeding.  Little wisps of magic escaped from Whimsy, tickling me as they wandered past.

“Palest moon, silent skies

‘Tis not long ‘fore the end, it looms.

Anger, sorrow, cast aside

In her path is naught but ruins.

“Ancient ring, fractured mind

Ling’ring ‘choes and dust, has she.

Firstborn kin, shattered kind

In the darkest dusk, she sees.”

The last word lingered for so long, I half expected Descant to turn around with his tongue darting out.  Whimsy kept on for a little bit, but quietly faded away into the wind once she realized is was over.  The shell of sorrow had morphed to one of revelatory determination; it felt like I was harboring a heart of darkness from the blinding light of noon.

“It’s...not finished,” Descant said sheepishly.

“It’s pretty.”  Whimsy rubbed what little of his neck she could reach.  “I like it.”

I itched to ask him what happened to the dragon in the tale.  It was unsettingly familiar, yet so...alien.

“She likes it too, don’t you?” prompted Whimsy hastily, when she noticed I wasn’t paying attention.

“It’s very...um...”  I wasn’t sure I knew the right word.  “Strange.”

“Strange, eh?”  Whimsy harrumphed.  “I see how it is.”

I pretended to hold up a sign.  “Seven out of ten.”

“I love you to—uh oh.”

“Shhh.” Descant silenced us both with an alarming level of urgency, simultaneously slowing his beats to a crawl.  I was about to ask him what it was when I heard the unmistakable trumpeting of dragons, and it wasn’t far.

My veins were instantly flooded with a frigid focus, and I felt Whimsy flatten herself slightly to Descant’s back.  I listened intently, picking the flurry of wingbeats apart.  Three dragons at least.  Maybe four.

We started losing altitude; Descant couldn’t flap without giving us away, and I felt him tense up, straining to keep us above the clouds.  They were really our only cover.  A single hole, and...

“They’re gone.”  Descant sounded as relieved as I was.

Whimsy waved cheerily at the fading sound of dragons.  “Buh-bye, suckers!  I didn’t want your spaghetti anyways.”  She stuck out her tongue noisily; I’d’ve smacked anyone else for potentially giving us away, but Whimsy knew better.

“Ten out of ten,” I said.  Whimsy haughtily turned her snout up and huffed with a level of pretentiousness that would’ve made Prince Blueblood glow with pride; we dipped briefly as Descant snorted, but recovered quickly.  “So...”

“Search party.”  The fwooms of his beats punctuated every few words, and herubbed his limp foreleg absentmindedly..  “A goddess cannot go missing and unsearched for, but by now they will have heard of your feats.”

“I figured,” I grumbled.  If it was hard to catch my last two marks vulnerable, it was impossible to catch them alone; it only followed that every dragon who heard about it would at the very least keep an eye and ear open for me.  Well, every dragon but one.  Sort of.

“Fan-freakin’-tastic,” said Whimsy.  “How’d’ya know, Des’?  I’ve always wanted a bunch of murderous dragons for Hearth’s Warming.”

“The Forbearer should be more concerned, no?”  Descant asked.  “You can disguise yourself.”

“She can defend herself,” Whimsy retorted.  “I can’t.”

“You can.  Just not in the same way as me.”  I turned to Descant, barely able to contain the surge of anger.  “And you.  Just how much do you know about us?”

I could see enough rolling around his mouth, but he was wise enough to not spit it out and instead chose to fly on.  He did so in silence for what seemed like both an hour and a second.

I wasn’t sure whether that was because he was cautious about letting us know exactly how much he knew, if it was because Whimsy was so tense she had almost toppled off, or if it was that my  hooves were none-too-gently clamped around as much of his neck as I could reach.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to notice the threat, and sure enough, there was the smallest bit of hesitance and the tiniest electric shock coursed through my hooves.  Yet he did not give any further acknowledgement—his voice held barely a whisper of thunder.

“I know enough to know that you two have a better chance than any of us at finding Lucifa.”  If she is avoiding us, she will not be avoiding you, and I daresay you have a knack for tracking down those who like hiding, no?  And you, little one,” he directed at Whimsy.  “You are a weaver of illusions.  One cannot be adept at that without being skilled at the reverse.”

I wasn’t too surprised to hear he knew Whimsy’s talent; he was smart, perceptive.  Perhaps one of the few threats to us, if he weren’t on my side.  Whimsy tilted her head, unperturbed.  “And...?”

“Lucifa is a master of imagination,” said Descant.  “She crafted weaves so vivid that even we, creatures of magic, often lost track of what was reality and what was merely her illusions run rampant.  I imagine you might fare a better chance.”

“Damn straight,” she said.

“But I must admit.  I do not know how you...see.”

“I don’t,” Whimsy said bluntly, leaving the crippled dragon waiting for an answer that would never come.  The way she compensated for her blindness was too easily exploited.

“You manage well enough without,” he noted, still pushing.

“Practice does a lot.”

He paused, efforts shunted aside by her curt reply.  “That it does,” he conceded, and pressed us no further.  For now.  He’d keep needling us later, I was certain.  It was too compelling a question to let go unanswered, but I hoped he was smart enough to keep it to himself.  I would never admit it, but the dragon was intriguing, and I didn’t want to have to intervene because he went too far.

Silence fell for a long while after that, Descant’s last words echoing around in my head.  No more search parties passed by, but I bolted upright every now and then, when gusts decided that it would be a really nice time to sound like flying dragons.

I periodically poked my head over Descant’s side.  Every now and then the cloud layer would break, exposing some small chunk of the quilt beneath—a lake, then a forest, then another lake, until finally the clouds dwindled and we were left riding the thermals rising from a colossal span of suncrisped sand.

There was vegetation directly beneath us, remnants of the forest, but they dispersed as quickly as we flew over them, and the desert’s full grandeur was free to reign.  Sanddrifts wandered lazily over the desert’s contours, accumulating briefly on exposed rocks before being ferried away once more.

“It’s a desert,” I whispered to Whimsy, but her little puzzled frown stayed put.

“I figured that out,” she snapped.  “But underneath...”

It was not a voice she used often.

“Centuries of civilization,” Descant finished for her.  “Buried in equally many centuries of dirt and sand.”

My silence was answer enough, but it was in part because I was expecting Descant to take the opportunity to ask how Whimsy could tell that this was not just a desert.

“There’s...a city under here.”  Whimsy sounded strange, and for her, that was really saying something.  “But some of the buildings are...”

“Yes.”  Descant wasn’t even looking down.  “Made for ponies.”

Whimsy didn’t contest the statement.  Shock and the need to understand, to know what had changed, what had transpired, lanced through me with such jarring force that I physically felt every one of my fibers stiffen.  “Why?”

“Duh,” Whimsy said, though the word lacked its usual bite.  “We used to live together.”

Her conviction was proof enough.  I followed with a question that seemed only natural.

“The calamity?”

“In a way.”  He tilted into a shallow dive, veering slighly offcourse and threading his way in between thermals until he scuffled his way to a stop on the sand.  “Let me show you.”

If he was going to show us something, I couldn’t tell what.  Much less see anything besides tan.  Whimsy was a little more fortunate.

“Is that a...?” she said, eyebrow cocked quizzically.  “What the heck.”

Descant remained mute, as did I, but after a moment, I noticed him blowing gently, sending flurries of sand scurrying to join their windborne brethren.  Then he limped forward and raised one claw, tip crackling, almost cackling, with electricity.

“Don’t move.”

And he moved his claw towards the tip of an exposed rock, where a single ephemeral spark bridged the gap.

It was as if someone had turned on a giant fan.  The wind went from a lazy, sand-laden breeze to rank-five tornado speeds before I could so much and draw breath, but it was immediately apparent that it was no storm.  The wind parted around us with such fluidity that it hardly touched my mane, and it went right to work uncovering an area around the exposed rock with the care and precision of an archaeologist.

As the sand was excavated, we were lowered almost unnoticeably, until we were left standing on a circular stone platform; the rock Descant had activated turned out to be the top of a curiously shaped, smooth rectangular rock, decorated with holes that ran cleanly through it.  Yet the wind kept going, revealing a pillar underneath our platform, then more and more roofs of smaller buildings.

Which was all fine, except beside me, Whimsy’s brow was severely furrowed, and her mouth had contorted itself into a grimace of pain.  She managed to stay silent—Descant had his back turned to her—but I could see her struggling, fighting the agony with a silent discipline that must’ve taken every ounce of her concentration.

Yet even despite that, I saw ghosts well up around her, ethereal outlines that took the shape of grotesque and fantastic creatures. Ones with too many legs, ones with none, some with pointed crystalline wings, others with too many tails, some with horns.  I caught a glimpse of something that looked vaguely like Cavantina, but it vanished before I could look closer, and still Whimsy’s illusory montage of impossible creatures barreled past.

Descant gave no indication that he noticed her convulsions.

Trying to not draw attention to Whimsy’s phantom entourage—Descant could turn at any second—I watched, frozen, as the wind unearthed more and more of the city, pillars and spires and towers and tiny little huts.  Most were of the same stone as our platform—this vaguely marble-colored stone—but others were darker, much darker.  They looked like they were made of the same pitch-black glass of Whimsy’s sword.

The sand beyond the city’s borders was blown upwards in a soft arc, flying away in a musty curtain upon reaching surface level and tinting the sunlight to this odd, off-orange color.  Some of the sand arched over the crater, enveloping us inside this see-through dusty bubble, but it was held at bay by the swirling winds.

Gradually, eventually, the wind brought its work to a close, and the city was laid bare before us, every surface and entrance completely free of sand, yet strangely weathered.  Numerous pockmarks and scratches were visible even from our vantage point, and every edge had been worn smooth by rain, but not one of the buildings showed any sign of structural failure.

As the final grains of sand departed, the lightning around Descant’s claw dwindled to minor sparks, and the windstorm died off.  Whimsy’s spasms subsided accordingly, although she was breathing so hard that she had to sit down.  I shot a glance at her; she let out a little exasperated sigh, but returned an I’m okay look.

We tore our eyes away from each other when the stone whistled to life; neither of us had noticed Descant had touched the rest of his claw to the stone, drumming them upon it as though it were a piano.  The wind ebbed and flowed, capering along with his movements, blowing across and through the stone’s holes with a flutelike voice.  The notes wavered with a mellifluous dance, this way and that, upwards and downwards, and with such mesmerizing grace that we were robbed of breath and the flow of time itself ceased its immutable march to listen.

Eventually Descant brought the mournful melody to a quiet close, and I found myself applauding right along with Whimsy, who had recontained the last traces of her fits and looked as normal as ever save for two tiny bags under her eyes.  Mind freed of the dragon’s musical shenanigans, I noticed for the first time that the city was shaped like a volcano.

The spire we stood atop was the tallest structure, and every one that radiated outwards from us got progressively smaller and shorter, until the outermost dots melded seamlessly into the fresh sand crater.  There were no roads, but small skyways connected adjacent buildings, and there were several open entrances to the spires that only the winged could reach.

“Behold, Aeolia,” said Descant.  “The crossroads of ponies and dragons, and home to all who wish to visit the shrine.”

“Shiny,” said Whimsy, her voice very quietly ragged.  Even I could feel weathered magic emanating from every structure, now that the windstorm had subsided; it was weak, very weak, but if I could feel it, it was more than sufficient to throw Whimsy off guard.  It was a mark of how much Whimsy had strengthened herself that she had even survived the magical onslaught.

  “I’ve never heard of this place,” I said honestly, and little quietly.  Descant was the quietest,  most courteous lightning-spewing dragon I’d met, yet here he was, upturning half a desert with a talon and a rock.  It was difficult restraining myself; he already knew much about me, too much, and it would apparently be less than trivial to level some of that power at me.

  “No,”  Descant said, though I wasn’t sure what he meant.  “This used to be a gathering place, once every year, where pony- and dragonkind alike would mass to pay our respects to the Goddess.”  He looked wistfully outwards, eyes darting from spire to spire.  “It has been a very long time since I opened that gate.”

  Whimsy edged outward, though she stayed a healthy distance from the dropoff.  She was still moving weakly, with less liveliness in her step than usual, but her horn was faintly glowing.  I peeked over the edge again, as casually as I could manage.

  Where before there was an abandoned city, a thriving one now took its place.  Dragons of every size and color darted between spires, and tiny little pony-shaped dots of equally many colors peppered the skyways.  There was occasional flashes of unicorn magic, and now and then I’d spot a pegasus in flight alongside dragons.

I didn’t need my goggles to know they were just Whimsy’s illusions.  The phantoms weren’t up to her usual standards; some of them were slightly see-through, some seemed incomplete, missing limbs or spines.  Whatever had powered the windstorm had left its mark on her, and by the looks of it, that mark wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Glad it’s empty,” I said, watching as the ghosts faded, and the city was left as desolate as ever.  Descant smiled, the kind of self-satisfied smile that made me want to hit him again.

“I wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t.”

“That’s great and all,” interrupted Whimsy.  “But what’s with the boat?”

The dragon’s mouth half-frowned, half-curled.  “There used to be a number of water dragons here.”

  Barren desert.  Former water dragons.  Emergency boat.  I was missing something.

“You guys have a fight or something?” Whimsy asked.

“The...calamity drove wedges between us.  All of us,” he added morosely.  “We fought without fighting.  Many lost everything but their life...war is kind to no one.”  He drummed his claws on the platform, sighing.  “The desert could have weathered any sort of accidental disaster.  Thunderstorms, earthquakes, wildfires.”

“But not floods?”  Whimsy asked, ear cocked.  Her horn was still slightly lit, and she was still standing back from the ledge—Descant was near the center—and I knew it was because she was fueling more illusory catastrophes out of sight.  Keeping her imagination in check was something she still needed to work on.

  “A flood would have turned the desert into an ocean of quicksand.  The water dragons chose to leave rather than shoulder that risk—high emotions throw any kind of magic into disarray—but they were our only source of water.  W—The inhabitants trickled out after that.”

“A boat for quicksand?” Whimsy said skeptically.  “Seems legit.”

Descant’s grin widened, baring an expanse of teeth I could’ve gone without seeing.  “You really think dragons would make just a boat?”

“Of course not,” she snapped.  “But it’s hard imagining what else a boat might do.”

As it turned out, Descant had a few more teeth hiding in the back.  “Then you, my friend, lack imagination.”

Whimsy turned her head towards him curiously, and the light from her horn was suddenly amplified, shrouding her in smouldering orange tendrils.  It took less than a moment for the magic to peel off and coalesce into her her draconic guise, and Descant soon found himself locked in an unannounced staring contest with a red-eyed, snow-white dragon.  To his credit, he took it in stride.

“Oho,” he said nonchalantly.  “What a pleasant surprise.”

There was a small whoosh of rushing wind, and Cavantina disappated, replaced by a pout-lipped Whimsy.

“You were saying?”

“Oh nothing,” Descant said unconvincingly.

I cleared my throat.

“Right,” said Whimsy, as though we hadn’t just taken a detour to a perfectly preserved city buried in the desert.  “Let’s press on, shall we?”

  Descant took one last look of longing at the city, and we were back in the skies not long after—it’d taken less than a minute for him to reverse the process, leaving the desert as barren as ever.  I found for some reason I couldn’t relax, and at first it seemed to be that niggling feeling that there was more beneath the sand than just one hidden city.

After a while, though, I realized that there was a faint trickle of magic that was neither Descant’s nor Whimsy’s ahead of us, like a fine mist that I couldn’t see.  We were close to the shrine, very close now, if I could feel it; I just hoped it didn’t get too strong.  Whimsy’d already filled her magical-seizure quota, and not lightly at that.

The other two started cracking jokes at each other, but I wasn’t listening; I was steeling myself, gathering my focus, prepared to analyze every last clue or not-clue at the shrine.  The faster I got this done, the faster I could guarantee Whimsy would be safe.  Descant had his faults, but I could be sure that she’d be in good claws if I left her with him.  Otherwise she’d have to spend the rest of her life hiding with me.

“Sis.”  Whimsy’s voice broke into my thoughts.  “Sis.  If you don’t stop, you’re gonna rip your feathers out.”

“I am not!” I blurted, hurriedly facing front again.

“Are too,” she said, sticking her tongue out, but I didn’t reply.  We both knew it was a bad habit, and sooner or later someone dangerous was bound to notice the habit.  As if I needed any more pursuers.  I leaned forward.

“How bad is it?”

“Not bad,” she whispered.  “Still a butterfly in my stomach, but this is...different.  Like...not weaker, but softer.  Gentler?”

“Good.  Don’t need you getting sick.”

“I’m not a filly anymore,” she snapped.

“You’re no mare either.”

Whimsy was denied the chance to respond as Descant tilted us into another dive, and with his head out of the way, our destination was visible at last.

The shrine was seated in the middle of a small oasis.  It was a massive creme-colored obelisk, its spliced-and-tapered point rising so high it tickled the clouds’ bellies.  Even from distance it was clear that it was heavily weathered; small patches of discolored mold and fungi crept up its rounded base, but it still stood there, as unyielding and as regal as the tallest mountain.  And—just like Descant had said—six trees stood in a perfect ring around it, all different species.  I only recognized the weeping willow, but one was absolutely tiny and only visible because it occupied a small island in the center of a stillwater pond.

“Wow,” Whimsy said, genuinely awestruck for once.  “Who made it?”

“I do not know.  This structure is as old as history itself.  Probably older.”

It felt like it, too.  It appeared hollow inside, like a rain gauge for giants; the walls were more than thick enough to weather the elements, and definitely more than thick enough to convince me that it was as old as Descant said.

“Sure it’s not just fossilized bamboo?” Whimsy smirked, and I could see what she meant.  The only odd thing was that, from the upper tip to about a third of the way down, there ran this straight cut that seemed to serve no purpose other than aesthetics.

  The dragon let her comment pass, and contented himself with hopping to a remarkably smooth landing near the shrine’s base.  Whimsy stumbled on her way off, but stabilized herself with the help of a bit of magic before wandering around the oasis, examining every tree.  A quick glance through my goggles confirmed that the real Whimsy was, in fact, standing near the shrine’s base, letting its primal magic flow and curl around her, while her illusory twin had already found herself a comfortable seat in the nook of the tallest tree.

“It does look like bamboo,” I said casually.  Despite appearances to the contrary, Whimsy never did anything without a reason.  Not that the reason was always sound, mind.

Descant chuckled, or at least that’s what it seemed like.  He let off this low, hiccuping sort of growl, but the corners of his mouth were curled upwards.

He gave no answer, though, so I trotted up to the shrine’s base.  There were archways, tall enough for dragons, to the inside every couple hundred metres or so; I headed for the nearest one.  It was definitely stone; it was as hard and had the same dull nonresonant thud when I tapped on it, but it didn’t smell like it.  It smelled like...old.  There was no other way to describe it.

On the other end of the tunnel appeared to be a mirror, but after a closer look it turned out to be large pond, or a small lake.  Like the one outside, which was recessed into the ground, its surface was perfectly smooth.  Unlike the one outside, it was perfectly circular, and nothing rested at any point inside the circle; no islands, no trees, nothing.  Even the bank I stood on was absurdly thin, like the only reason it was there at all was so there was something to stand on.

I heard the flapping of leather wings behind me, and turned to find Descant next to me, hovering about a foot off the ground.

“Beautiful, no?” he said.

“In a way, I suppose,” I said honestly.  It was very pretty, but there was really nothing remarkable besides the structure itself.  Admittedly the six trees were a bit suspicious, but they were far from the strangest thing I’d seen.

“Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”  It was easy—even for me—to feel the magic permeating every blade of grass and every particle of this place, but it didn’t fill me with the same sort of heady dread that a suite chock-full of security wards did.  It somehow seemed...natural.  Not just like it belonged here in the oasis, but like it was the soil from which...everything had sprung.

“I can!” piped up Whimsy from behind us.  I couldn’t check if it was the real one or not with Descant so close, but she had that bounce in her step and that grin on her face, and it really did seem like the real Whimsy.  But of course, that was the catch.  Whatever the case, though, she shot me a worried glance whose raised eyebrows read: We are not alone.

“Then there is little more I must give for you to believe that this place marks the birthplace of Equestria and beyond.”  He brushed the grass fondly.  “This is the only oasis in this desert, and it has been here for as long as anyone can remember.”

For a second it looked like the water’s surface started to ripple, but it was just the light glinting off his bright-green scales.  The dragon took another deep, drawn-out breath that reeked of longing, and the wind sighed lazily, drearily with him.

“And it is where I met and married my mate.”

[P1.4] Raven Sings a Midnight Tune

Raven Sings a Midnight Tune

In the small visible patch of barren sky, a single little cloud drifted across, its edges aglow with silver sunlight.  There was more to this place than even what Descant was willing—or going—to tell us, and the quiet rustle of grass from somewhere nearby was not helping me figure it out.  It did, however, draw both Descant’s attention and mine; unnoticed by anyone besides me, Whimsy vanished into thin air with a barely-audible pop.

“Oooooo,” said a brash voice from out of sight, as though we were back in kindergarten and somebody had just gotten in trouble.  “Do tell.”

Neither one of us blinked as a small group of ponies entered the shrine’s inside from an adjacent tunnel; two were chatting away obliviously, but the third was eyeing us with a pair of brilliantly blue eyes that were absolutely loaded with curiosity.

“Why, hello,” Descant said, as though he were welcoming guests to a party.

“Hi,” I managed stiffly.

“Hi,” the blue-eyed pegasus said brightly, nudging her companions, who both shot hasty greetings at us before returning to a conversation I could make neither head nor tails out of.  “You here for the dance, too?”

At the word dance, I saw in the corner of my eye Descant’s head twitch and his eyes drift askew, but a moment later he looked as immutably grand as ever.  “Yes,” he said smoothly.  “I suppose we are.”

I made a mental note to ask him later what dance.  If I got the chance.

“Brilliant,” she said, her British accent becoming slightly more pronounced.  Her coat was the color of puffy clouds on a sunny day, and her ocean-blue mane had tiny curls at the end of each strand.  A trio of water droplets decorated her flank; she seemed about my age.  “I haven’t seen it yet, but these two”—she nodded towards the others—”swear it’s bloody fantastic.  Even better than the Great and Powerful Trixie, if you can believe that load of tosh.”

I thought privately that Whimsy would have a fit if she was listening in, but if she did, she did so without drawing any attention.

“But what were you saying, sir?” she said politely, addressing Descant.  “Something about meeting and marrying your mate here?”

“My first and only mate, yes,” he amended.  “There was little needed to make this place suitably beautiful, I assure you, but I’ll save those stories for another time.”

“Aww,” she cooed, half-disappointed, half-dreamy, no doubt imagining what a dragon’s marriage ceremony might entail.  “That’s cute.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” the dragon continued casually, extending one tentative talon slowly, so they didn’t take alarm.  “Descant.”

“Deluge,” she said, shaking his claw.  The others suddenly noticed she’d stopped paying attention, their eyes darting wildly about until they found us.  “Pleasure.”

“Sterling,” said an older, silver earth pony.  His mane was straight, but each strand’s end was part of a watery curtain that hid his right eye.  If he was afraid at all of shaking a dragon’s claw, he didn’t show it.  I couldn’t make much out of his cutie mark—it appeared to be nothing more than a very shiny splotch of silver. “Ster’s fine.”

“You twats,” said the remaining pony, a lavender unicorn with violently purple eyes and an indigo flower for a cutie mark.  She was young, younger than the other two, maybe a just a little younger than Whimsy.  “Sure, just go ahead and shake a dragon’s claw.  Not like it’s a gutting tool or anything.  And while you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and ignore the pony slinking away behind him.  Clearly she has nothing to hide.”

I froze, not quite having managed to take cover behind the scaled behemoth that was Descant.  I hurriedly adopted the sheepish, flitting eye-contact of my alter ego, and shuffled nervously, but not quite nervously enough to forget to obscure my cutie mark.

“Pardon my friend,” Deluge said courteously, shooting the friend in question a piercing glare that seemed to wither half the grass around its recipient.  I didn’t miss the little crease in their brows, though; however polite they pretended to be, they were suspicious now.

“Sorry,” I said, as meekly as I could, remembering Whimsy’s advice: Don’t think about what you’re hiding, and they won’t either.

“It’s quite alright,” Deluge said.  “What’s your name, again?”

“Silhouette.”  I almost forgot to repress the normal, almost metallic edge in my voice, remembering just in time that I was extremely shy.  “Nice to meet you all.”

“How dare you,” said the third unicorn, offended.  “You don’t even know my name.”

“It’s Violet,” hissed Sterling.

“Hey,” interjected Violet.  “I didn’t ask you.”

“Yes, because I’m your slave, and the only things I do are the things you tell me to do,” said Sterling, rolling his eyes.

Descant cleared his throat.  I could tell he was trying to do it quietly, without being overly imposing, but it obviously wasn’t something he practiced too much.  It felt like a miniature earthquake.

Deluge apologized profusely, but I didn’t hear exactly what she said; there was more rustling of grass from another tunnel.  From the sound of it, two more ponies, and these two I knew.

Relief flooded my mind and veins as, from the opposite end of the shrine, two familiar ponies entered, bickering and arguing convincingly.  Both were unicorns; one was this pale grey with a silvery sheen and a straight-cut icy-blue mane.  The other was a much darker grey with an even darker, puffy mane that looked a bit like storm clouds.

“Well, well, well,” the dark grey one said, lilting this way and that as she stumbled her way over to us, surveying the meeting like a magician might survey his audience.  Her voice was, as always, sounded more than a little drunk.  “Lookee wha’ we have here.”

She looked back at her partner, who nodded and ushered her forward.

“Of course.”  The first pony finally reached us, bowed graciously, took a dramatic breath, and spoke in a voice so deep it visibly shook the entire shrine.

“From the world’s furthest corners, armed with magic’s darkest secrets...”  As she spoke, her horn spiraled to life, swiftly bathing us in darkened magic that seemed to suck every bit of light out of the area.  In seconds we were shrouded in a black fog so thick I couldn’t even see Descant next to me; only the dark grey unicorn was left illuminated.  Yet even then, the only things we could see were her face, which was possessed by some manic, almost demonic-looking wide-eyed expression, and her puffy mane, which was barely lit and flailing wildly about, nearly indistinguishable from the roiling smoke.

She’d improved since last time.

Right on cue, a small patch of smoke exploded, revealing the other mare standing there, just beneath her partner, who was now levitating far above the ground and was surrounded by swirling black circles of glowing runes.  “We are the infamous...the incredible...the illustrious Smoke.  And.  Mirrors!”

As Smoke announced their names, the smoke vanished around each of them with a burst of blinding light and burning sparks, and we were left sitting there, slightly dumbfounded and with stars still dancing in our eyes.

It was then that we noticed that Smoke and Mirrors were standing atop the pond’s still surface like it was glass, and the applause burst forth.  I couldn’t help but join in; Whimsy had really stepped up her game.  Shame nobody would ever know it was just one young mare fueling the whole spectacle.  Wandering around like we did gave her a lot of time to hone her talent, and honed it she had.

Smoke and Mirrors did the whole bowing bit, turning to each half of the audience before bidding us farewell until nightfall.  Curiously, not long after Descant did the same; presumably the dance was to take place at night.  I took his cue and followed suit, uttering a timid “Goodbye” to each of the other three ponies before exiting the shrine behind Descant.

Outside, we took refuge near the little tree-pond setup, and once I’d finish setting up our small tent, Whimsy materialized inside, looking a little drained but otherwise okay.  “Nice one,” she whispered to me.  “They looked pretty fooled.”

I grinned at her.  “I didn’t have to fool them for long, Ms. Smoke and Mirrors.”

Red splotches discolored her cheeks and her head drooped slightly, as though she was staring at my hooves.  “I’ve had a lot of time to practice.”

I let out a reluctant laugh that sounded more like I had an upset stomach.  “That you have, Whimsy.  That.  You.  Have.”

The tent door fluttered ajar, and the shadow of a claw wandered across it.  I pulled it all the way back, and Descant poked his head in.  There wasn’t much room left over.

“I believe I owe you both an explanation and an apology,” he said quietly, though the tent’s walls still trembled with the sound of timid thunder.  “The ‘dance’ is a spectacle that many travel for months to see.  I admit I’m surprised there aren’t more ponies here to see it; it only happens during the latter of a blue moon pair.”

I frowned at him, forcing as much command into my voice as I dared direct at a dragon.  “Anything else you ‘forget’ to tell us?”  Any more slips of his mind could mean the end of all three of us.

“No,” he said firmly.  “You must understand.  To live for so long, to accumulate so many memories.  They are as fish in a pond.  Some are closer to the surface than others, and that is always changing.”  He closed his eyes, a slight crinkle filling the tent as he furrowed his scaly brow.  “But I am aware of the dangerous line you tread.  I wish no grievous harm befall you, and I am prepared to take any steps necessary to prevent it.”

He opened his eyes again, and for once I saw every little striation in his irises, every tiny discoloring that marred their golden sheen.  I wondered vaguely how much of that detail was in my own eyes.  Or in Whimsy’s.

“Great,” grumbled Whimsy.  “Heads up, another lecture incoming.”

Descant grinned, and I heard the rumblings of a chuckle from somewhere far behind his pointed teeth.  “Not this time, I’m afraid.  The dance cannot be explained nor retold.  Nothing can capture what it is to see the stars dance, and before...it was how we communed with Mother.”

I coughed, spraying Whimsy with half-chewed apple chunks, but she hardly noticed.   In all fairness, she was still maintaining the two illusions that were Smoke and Mirrors, just in case Deluge and her friends went looking for them.

“Stars?” I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.  “Dance?”

He nodded as far as he could without uprooting the tent stakes, his eyes downcast at an angle that clearly said I knew you wouldn’t believe me.

“He’s not lying,” Whimsy said sharply.  “Every dragon’s seen it and every one remembers it.  Bet my tail on it.”

“Keep your tail.  I wanna see this.”

“Meet me inside the shrine at nightfall, and we will see if you can discern more than I.”  Descant withdrew his head, and after the tent flaps fell shut I heard his arrhythmic thuds fading away.  I turned to Whimsy, who had sprawled out on her bedspread, trying to get some sleep.  I couldn’t, as much as I needed it.

“Whimsy.”

“Yes?”

“If...if something happens to me, find Descant, and tell him...’The silver nimbus yields.’”

Her head lifted off the pillow, but she didn’t respond right away.  I was afraid she would retaliate, berate me for doing what I did, chew me out for not trusting her to take care of herself.  She did none of that.

“I’m glad you chose him and not some other dolt.  At least he’s fun.”  She paused.  “Thank you.”

She lay back down, and she was asleep before I could untie my tongue.  I left the tent and stood outside. Dancing stars aside—as mesmerizing as it sounded—I didn’t trust any of the other three, and there was always that tiny niggling thought that Descant wasn’t as benevolent as he wanted us to believe.  Plus there was always the chance that Smoke and Mirrors would be found out.  I was Whimsy’s contingency plan, more or less.

So I stood guard.  The sun fell ever lower, the wind grew ever stronger, and my body’s protests went unacknowledged.  I’d gone without sleep before, and for less important reasons.  Another sleepless night wouldn’t kill me.

Off in the distance I saw the other three milling about and erecting their own tents, their chatter fading into the wind’s own whispers by the time it got to me.  On the opposite side, Smoke and Mirrors were hard at work inside a large tent, which was leaking a thin stream of black smoke.  I pretended to brush my mane down and sneaked a glance through my goggles’ lenses; the two unicorns didn’t exist, according to them.

It was surprising the enchantment had held for as long as it had.  Magic, said Whimsy, was not a slave.  It went where it willed.  On top of that, the goggles were always in the presence of one strong magical being—usually two—and that wasn’t counting dragons.  The fact that its enchantment hadn’t been disrupted thus far was a miracle in itself, but every time I used them, I knew that I couldn’t depend on them forever.

Banishing my drifting thoughts, I cast my eyes outwards again.  The other three had settled into their tents—Sterling and Deluge in one, Violet in the other—while the smoke billowing from the twin magicians’ tent had only thickened.  The pure blue of the sky was starting to yield to indigo with the usual red-and-yellow shenanigans in between, but there was still some time yet before night was upon us.

I hardened my core and stiffened as much as I could without appearing frozen, allowing my mind to settle into a trancelike focus, where I was conscious but not, where I could stare without seeing, move without moving.  All three of the camps had fallen silent; Descant was soaring far overhead, his crippled leg dangling limply below.  The desert around us was barren in every sense of the word; I couldn’t see any incoming threats, so if there was one, it involved the other three.

I couldn’t decide what to make of them.  They seemed harmless enough, but that they showed up at the same time we did was reason enough to be wary.  I tentatively brought my hooves together, and when they were almost touching, a tiny spark leapt between my bands.  I needed to charge them, and I needed to do it soon.

The sky slowly turned to one fit for a postcard.  I lost my wandering mind in its maelstrom of hues, reds, oranges, yellows, pinks.  It always struck me as odd that I could look directly at the sun at these times with no pain at all; it was this soft reddish-yellow, and it cast the same light over everything it touched, as though everything exposed to it would catch fire.

There was, of course, some slight mumbling from inside the tent.  I knew Whimsy wouldn’t be sleeping well.  She loved feeling the sunrises and sunsets, and missing even just one would be torture.  She said it was the only time that both Celestia and Luna ruled in equal measure.  The only time they could be sisters instead of polar-opposite deities.

All too soon the sun brushed against the ocean of sand, the moon slithered into view, and all three camps came to life again.  Descant landed next to me, apparently not at all puzzled as to why I’d turned into a statue.  Whimsy emerged from the tent, yawning.  In the distance, I could see the twilight-lit outlines of the other three mingling, and the twin magicians’ tent was glowing so brightly I was surprised it hadn’t burst into flame.  It occurred to me then that it must be a lot easier to maintain the illusion of a large glowing tent and some smoke than a pair of walking, talking unicorns.

And indeed, Whimsy’s horn was glowing much less than it had been.  I slowly let my vigilance bleed out until I could relax somewhat, and I managed a small grin.  What little sleep left hanging over her vanished instantly.

“All right,” she said to Descant.  “What did you do to her?”

“Pardon?”

“She’s smiling.  What have you done to her?”  She could’ve been reading off a list of crimes I’d committed.  Pity her if she ever had to do that.

The dragon took a tiny step back, but his voice was firm.  “Nothing.”

Whimsy whirled to me, blindfold ablaze with the glare she could not give.  “All right, missy, what gives?”

I could feel my smile widening in spite of myself.  “Dunno.”  It was as much the truth as anything was.  I felt, for once, content.  Almost...cheery.  Some of it was a heaving relief that what came next was not up to me, and that anything that went wrong wasn’t immediately my failure.  Partly it was because I hadn’t had to really worry about being captured in the past few days.

But it wouldn’t last forever.

“Oh.”  Whimsy sounded relieved, yet even as she continued I could feel the smile sliding off my face like a cold splash of water.   “Good.  You haven’t gone crazy.  Yet.  You had me worried for a second.”

I merely turned to Descant, who, like he did for most of our sisterly interactions, was following curiously along.   When he met my eyes, however, he motioned towards the shrine.  Whimsy followed immediately, but I lingered just long enough to pack up the tent and fluff up the grass that Whimsy’d flattened.  No traces.

The shrine was veritably packed by the time I entered. Descant was right in front of me; Smoke and Mirrors were sitting quietly off to our left, and the other three were sitting to our right, chatting away.   I felt the invisible Whimsy prod me gently, and I noted with some discomfort that her leg was stiff, tensed.  Perhaps the shrine’s magic changed during the dance...or one of the other three was more than they wanted us to know.  Either way, she was nervous, and that was never a sign of anything good.

“Couldn’t sleep last night,” she whispered in my ear.  “This damn thing gives off way too much magic, but it doesn’t make me sick.  The only reason I can think of is that it’s coming from the same place as mine...but that would mean...”

Descant quietly unfurled his left wing over us, and he poked his head into the leathery tent.  Whimsy materialized in response; the dragon’s bulk shielded her from the others’ view, and his wing rendered us nigh-inaudible.

“Might you know?”  he asked curiously.  “We dragons have never figured out where the Calamus came from, or even how it works.  It can introduce us to our creators, but that is all we know.  Even the dance does follows no pattern, and it is always different, always new.”

Whimsy glared at him, pretending to be upset that he’d overheard.  “Excuse me, mister, I wasn’t talkin’ to you.”

Descant was about reply when the dance started, and the words died in his throat.

[P1.5] Stars Emerge to Light the Ruins

Stars Emerge to Light the Ruins

It was just a light at first.  A tiny little pinprick at the bottom of the pond that couldn’t decide what color it wanted to be, and so was all of them yet none.  After the briefest of moments, it started to rise, slowly, and as it did it grew larger, ever larger, so that by the time it breached the surface it had nearly swallowed us into its luminous depths.

The light-sphere stopped growing at that point, but it kept rising.  Water dripped from the underside as it floated upwards, the droplets landing in the pond with nary a splash or ripple.  As one our heads followed it as it wandered up the shrine’s column, still bathing us in iridescant rays, until it reached the top.  There it stopped, quivering, until a deafening howl filled the shrine, one reeking of ages beyond comprehension, sending tremors through everything and a ring of similar light barreling up the shrine’s inner surface, towards the sphere suspended at the shrine’s peak.

We all collectively and audibly inhaled as we realized, as one, that the speeding ring would not soften its blow.

The collision rendered us blind and deaf for what seemed like minutes.  The very air exploded with the raw force of the impact, and the ground itself shuddered violently, but the grass beneath us was blown level in a spiral, and the air rapidly swirled into a vicious tornado, threatening to wrench us from our hooves and throw us to the stars.  Descant stayed steady somehow, but his scales’ edges were blazing with the exact same multihued luminescence.

After a moment, I noticed that everypony inside—including the invisible Whimsy—was glowing, too.  Less brightly than Descant, much less brightly, but for some inexplicable reason I shone brighter than them.  My light was still dimmer than Descant’s, but the more I looked, the more certain I was that the strength of my glow was somewhere in between.  Hopefully nopony else would notice...

Nopony did.  The supercharged sphere, complete with new ring, was rocketing into space, rapidly shrinking to the size of the distant stars, showering us with sparkling dust and glimmering starlight.  None of us so much as breathed to break the silence until long after it disappeared into the night’s crowded sky.

And sure enough, the stars began to move.

Slowly, lazily, they wandered this way and that, bumping into each other, seemingly apologizing before parting ways again.  I knew not how the stars, so distant, so dispersed, moved not only themselves but the light they cast, but never in as many lifetimes would I have believed they could do so.

Within minutes filled with bated breath, a pattern emerged, vortices of light on black, swirling down to blazing, blinding novas where the stars began to converge.  Whimsy’s breathing at my side was audible, if restrained; on the other ends, Smoke and Mirrors were still silent, but the other three were murmuring amongst themselves, their whispers indistinguishable from the cricket song outside.

The dance continued for a length of time I couldn’t distinguish, and a large part of me preferred it that way.   Time melted away as we sat there, watching the stars dance, watching the cosmos itself sway to and fro with the joy of magic.  Each little point of light roamed the night skies with the freedom of a bird and the purpose of none, not so much soaring as waiting for the empyrean wind to fill their sails and nudge them where it will.

And still the stars wandered closer to each other, each adding their own small contribution to the ever growing amalgamation, a monstrous sworl that interrupted the night’s veil with the beauty of endless stars combined.

I could feel them, the travelers of the universe, no longer shining upon us but brutally pummeling us with blinding light, yet when I glanced downwards, our own glows persisted, competing with the starlight until the two completely blotted out everything with a bright, prismatic sheen.  Even Descant, covered in iridescent scales, vanished into the light’s aether, the brilliant void.  I couldn’t see my own two hooves in front of me.

A startled gasp escaped me as a primal force, without warning, grasped me, every last particle of my being caught in an invisible vice that knew no remorse.  It slowly turned its attention upwards, and I rose off the ground, wings folded tightly, the familiar rush of gravity surging through me and then rapidly fading away and leaving the distinct feeling of distorted weight behind.

Panic flooded me.  Was I about to be fired into space?  I could no longer see or hear any of the others.  I couldn’t tell if they were floating, too.  All I knew at that moment was that if I was about to be launched to the furthest stars, I was going to do it with my wings open.

They snapped open almost reflexively, and for the briefest of moments I was ready to take on the world.  But horror widened my eyes as I beheld the cosmic whirlpool that was unmistakeably my  destination.  The colossal splotch now dominated the entire visible patch of sky with its celestial light, though I could only tell because the light reflecting off the shrine’s walls was just a tad dimmer than the vortex.

It suddenly occurred to me that the light we were all staring was the sort of blinding bright that would normally render someone, at the very least, unable to see for hours, yet I could stare right into it with no pain, and from the absence of painful screaming I guessed that the others could do the same.  And that was ignoring the fact that it was still cycling through every color, imaginable or not, faster than I could blink.

And still, I was lifted skyward, inching towards the cosmic tornado, drawn by some magical and relentless force, panic still racing through my veins.  I forced it back, repressing the hot-blooded rush of instinct before it could take hold and allowing that familiar icy sting of a clear mind to take over once more.

I struggled.  Not as much as I wanted to—if Whimsy were too close I’d knock her out cold—but there was no purchase to be had, not even with my wings.  Whatever was lifting me wasn’t doing so with any physical force, so I was completely at its mercy.  Almost.

I could hear nothing, see nothing, and I could no longer feel the presence of the others as I normally could.  My fear of hitting Whimsy vanished.

Power coursed through me as I brought my hooves together and rescinded my bands’ magical inhibitors; white-blue solid lightning blasted, arcing, hissing to life between my hooves.  Two smells filled my nostrils; the misty air that precedes rain and the scorched air that follows lightning.   I swept the crackling arc all around me, but I hit nothing, and if anything happened, I couldn’t tell.

Perhaps it was only seconds, maybe minutes, but I fought blindly, swinging my garrote in every direction I could reach for a while.  I knew it was useless, and my frustration was hitting critical levels, but it was either keep trying, or settle in and let the force finish its job.  Celestia and Luna take me, I would not go down without a fight.  Not unless I knew Whimsy was safe, and right now, I sure as Tartarus didn’t know what horrors she was suffering.

The garrote flickered out of existence just as I brought it over my head, the few leftover sparks dancing in a terrifying likeness of the stars that now spelled my doom.  My hope petered out along with the lightning’s pitiful remnants, and I was left, despite my efforts, completely at the mercy of an unknown magic.

It didn’t seem to care.  The magic finished lifting me to the shrine’s tip, and there I stopped, hovering with both wings tightly folded.  Whatever dread I had was multiplied a thousandfold—it was the exact same thing the shrine had done before firing off the earthborn star.  I still couldn’t see anything around me besides the faintest outlines of the walls, where the light was just a hair brighter than the rest.

“Sis?” My voice came out oddly calm.  “Des?”

No response.  I steeled myself and resigned myself to my end, and the magic was all too happy to oblige.  I found myself blasted into space with cold resignation in my heart, and in some dark, grim corner of myself, I found solace in the fact that my final destination lay amongst the stars.

[P1.6] Pony Up and Stardust

Pony Up and Stardust

I did not end amongst the stars.

I was floating—not of my own power—in some strange, nebulous region.  It looked almost exactly like the lightbathed shrine had, except it was completely silent, and I could move.  It was spherical, the light walls as solid as any stone, yet the walls kept rippling erractically, like I was caught in some bizarre raindrop.  I was also—as far as I could tell—alone, save for these little tiny specks of the flickering light that darted around the sphere’s interior like so many lightning bugs.

There was nothing I could do but wait.  I still couldn’t fly at all—I could move freely but it got me nowhere—and my bands had run out of charge, though I suspected they wouldn’t be much use here.  There was still no sign of Whimsy, Descant, or the other three, which was in itself odd, and on top of that, the place looked the same whether I had my goggles on or not.  This was no illusion.

I punched myself.  It hurt.  The air was thin, but breathable.  I found myself strangely relaxed.  Death was a lot shinier and a lot less painful than I’d expected.

At least until it stung me.

Every time one of the lightning bugs brushed against me, it zapped me, the sensation somewhere between a static shock and being stung by a halfhearted bee.  It was more irritating than anything else, but the stings were strong evidence that I wasn’t actually dead, merely suspended in some limbo region of magic.

I kept hoping, wishing I’d see Whimsy here, but if the magic heard me, it wasn’t listening.  Which was a minor disappointment; I had been half-hoping that by some stroke of luck the magic would grant my wish, and Whimsy’d show up.  Or at least that it’d show me that she was alive and unharmed.

“Your sister is alive.”

If I had been flying, raw shock would’ve plucked me right out of the air.  Several voices had spoken, the flawless wall of sound pressing in from all sides, each voice wholly unique and distinct.  I noticed then that all the little lightning bugs, the teeny stars, were congregating in front of me; I instinctively tensed, fortified by the familiarity of calculated fearlessness.

“Hello?”

“Peace.”

The single word echoed with a veritable symphony of voices, but for all the components that composed it, for all the parts of the whole, only one of them made it through my hardened shell.  Or more accurately, blasted its way through with a worldshaking series of silent explosions—I’d heard that exact word in that exact voice too many times to count.  There was no mistaking it.

“Dad?!”

His voice, and his voice alone, answered me.  “You have grown.”

Half my brain seized up at the distinct sound at his careful, gruff tones.  A single lightning bug had separated from the pack to hover right in front of me, buzzing slightly and quivering like it was cold; it was then that I noticed I couldn’t tell how hot or cold it was inside the magic bubble.  I reached out to the tiny star, and it brushed against me.

But instead of shocking me, I felt it siphoning my stress, drained away like someone had pulled the plug in the bathtub, and I relaxed in spite of myself.  Things that mattered before didn’t now—things like how much I had stashed away for Whimsy, how unsure I was of Descant.  How I was talking to my long-since-deceased father.

“There is a star for every creature in the universe,” his voice said.  “Dead, alive, unborn.  This is but a shard of mine.  Your mother’s, I’m afraid, isn’t here right now.”

I frowned, but said nothing.  I didn’t have to.  My mother would not appreciate the path I’d taken, and we both knew it.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

The spark—Dad’s star—brushed against my hoof again.

“You did what you had to do.”

“...Thanks, Dad.”  I had known from nearly the start that Dad wouldn’t begrudge me for anything, but knowing something isn’t the same as hearing it.

“But you aren’t finished yet.”

I nodded, unable to speak.  Which was not helped when Dad guessed exactly what I was thinking.  The rest of the stars had formed a loose cluster behind him, though I could readily still pick him out.

“Resolution.”  Dad’s star quivered with the word’s cadence, as did all the stars behind him and every last feather I had.  Usually he pushed resolve, not resolution.  But then again, he had had plenty time to think it over.  “You have brought it to many,” he continued.  “Yet you have found none in return.”

I shuffled my wings, the sound of shifting feathers painfully loud in the otherwise silent bubble.  The other stars had grown oddly still, as if they’d been flash-frozen, yet I could feel them listening, guessing.  Judging.

If only they knew...but it was—without question—better that they didn’t.

But if Dad noticed any oddities, he didn’t bring them up.  “The Calamus has given birth to countless stars,” he said.  “And, likewise, it ends them.  But it does not determine what happens after.  That...is you.”

I still couldn’t find anything worth saying aloud—Dad knew me well enough to know every question I would have.  The only one I really needed answered was...what, exactly, did I have to do?  Bringing closure to living beings was simple enough, but closure to stars?  I was no magician, and as far as I knew only the cosmic sisters were capable of surviving a trip to the void.

“Like the lifeless vessel of an animal, stars do not vanish when they die.  The bits and pieces that compose them slowly part ways over time.  Some find a new home.  Others do not.”  He paused, letting the quiet chitters from the other stars die down.  “In order to meet Lucifa, you need to spread resolution to those not yet blessed with its solace.”

“Mmm,” I said.  For one fleeting moment I thought of asking why it had to be me, but the reason was obvious.  Either I was being forced into ‘redeeming’ myself, or no one else had as much experience with ending things as I had.

Dad’s star flickered and floated backwards, disappearing into the crowd.

“I know you will do what must be done.”

And the lights started to fade.

“...G’bye, Dad.”

End of Prelude

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[Arc I] Steady Rain, Howling Gust

Arc 1

— « § » —

Steady Rain, Howling Gust

— « § » —

Master Table of Contents

Changelog

[A1.1] Illusions Left but Wanderlust

Illusions Left but Wanderlust

I was expelled into existence on a cloud overlooking a small town surrounded by trees; a slight tingling and some rapidly waning memories were all the evidence I had of my magical excursion.  That and a fresh batch of resolve to find what I was supposed to end, and end it.   I did know what needed to be done, and that was it.  That was always it.  Give the end to someone else.

My saddlebags were still on me, and a quick sweep confirmed they still held the food, Descant’s scale, and the compass.  I also still had my goggles and my bands, much to my relief.  Water could be found, food made, but those two possessions could not be replaced.  I swept the bronze frames down, but nothing changed.  This was real.

Where was I?  Was Whimsy okay?  I didn’t care what befell me as long as she was alive and unharmed—

No, she was alive and unharmed.  If Dad said it, star or not, then it was true.  Certainty was not a common trait for him.  Typically he had to double- and triple-check everything he did before he was satisfied.  If he said Whimsy was fine, then she was fine.

I banished panic and took in my surroundings.  Above me was a clear night sky lightly dotted with clouds and peppered with stars.  The town’s houses below were not lit.  I checked the compass, but if it was supposed to point north, it was broken.  It was pointing at me.

“Heeyyy,” said a voice behind me, with the faintest hint of delirium.  “What are you doing here?”

I whirled around to find a pegasus watching me with startingly blue eyes.  Familiar blue eyes.

“No idea,” I said honestly.  “Were you just in some sort of magic bubble?”

Deluge nodded.  “Saw my mother.”

I paused.  “I’m sorry.”

“...What for?”

“Your mom.  Isn’t she...y’know, dead?”

She just looked at me.  “No.  Why would—oh.”  Realization spread across her face.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.  It was a while ago.  So, uh...” I wasn’t sure how to ask; my dad, after all, had been a star.  Would her mom have literally been there?  “...what’d she tell you?”

Again, Deluge just looked confused.  “She was talking to my dad, not me, and she...she wanted me to get even.”

She didn’t sound entirely honest, and I couldn’t blame her.  It was a superbly personal thing.  I’d done what was necessary for years, but coming from my dad, doing what is necessary meant something else entirely, and I didn’t even want to think about it.

“I was told to do what must be done.”

“I assume you know what that means.”

I nodded.  “It means I’m here to help you, for starters.”  Which was the truth; I had never done work for my own agenda, only that of others.  “So you can start by explaining who you need to get even with.”

“Like I would just tell you.  I don’t even know yo—”

She stopped suddenly, squinting at me.  Dread welled up in my gut as I realized something terrible, something horrific, something that might obliterate my best protective measure, one that I’d maintained for years.  A single look from her was all it took to confirm my fear.

I’d forgotten I was supposed to be Silhouette to her.

“...you.  No.  You can’t be.  There’s no way.  She’s an urban legend.  A ghost story.”

I felt paralyzed.  I couldn’t move.  She knew.  She had to.  But then...she had to.  If I was going to work for her, it was inevitable she would find out.  And if that was true, better sooner than later.  She’d already figured it out anyways.

“Zephyr.  The Zephyr.”  She looked at me oddly, and absent was the fear that most ponies wore when they learned my identity.  “No wonder nopony knows what you look like.  Everyone and their mother knows a blue pegasus.”

I still felt paralyzed, but for a different reason.  She wasn’t afraid.  Why wouldn’t she be afraid?

“Wait!” she burst out.  “If you’re here to help—no, me getting even doesn’t involve killing anyone.”

And I added another reason to the list of why I was paralyzed.  If I wasn’t meant to work here,   what good was I going to do?

“So what does it involve?”

Her head dropped, and she starting poking at the cloud, causing tiny droplets to fall out the other side.  I was disappointed; there was no accompanying crackle of thunder.  “I...I’m not sure.  There’s somepony I need to talk to, that’s for sure.”

“Just talk to?”

“...Yes.”

She did not sound entirely honest, but I left it at that.  If all she needed was to find someone, then that was fine by me.  But something about the way she said it...

“Is he in that village?”

“Was."

And with that she shoved off, gliding downwards to the town.  I hesitated, wary.  It wasn’t her that was the issue, and neither was my purpose here.  I had to give her resolution, but not that of death.  Not yet, not until I knew her story.  It was her story I had to end, a conflict left to rot and fester that I had to resolve, because no one else would, or could.  Sometimes that meant death, sometimes not.  Hopefully it was the latter.

But the real issue was, how would this lead me to Lucifa?  The only assurance I had that it would was the Calamus’ mechanics—and that was hardly assurance at all, given that it was a large, magic block of stone in the middle of a desert.  It might have something to do with the Eyrie, but what, exactly, was that?  And who were the creatures who maintained it?

There were too many questions I couldn’t answer.  But following Deluge was the only path I could take, or Descant wouldn’t uphold the deal, and Whimsy would be left to her own devices.  Yeah, right, like she could live on those.

So I followed her down, and she landed right in front of one of the wooden houses on the outskirts.  She didn’t even bother knocking; she just pushed the door open. I waited a moment, then followed her in, my eyes darting between the doors, the windows, the hallways, the pictures on the walls, the fireplace, the potted plants, the hexagonal mirror on the mantel.  It was undoubtedly well-kept at some point—the room’s contents were neatly arranged—but dust lay on every surface and  and cobwebs infested every corner, and within moments I started feeling weary, dragged down by the passage of time.

Deluge motioned for me to stay put and wandered into the back room, leaving me to contemplate the room.  If it was a trap, it wasn’t a very good one; there were escape routes every way I turned.  No sounds came from the room Deluge was in; there was only a few things she could be doing.  Looking for something big, checking up on things, or looking for someone.  I could hear Whimsy’s voice, crudely attempting to imitate Deluge:  Aha, found Lucifa!

The pegasus returned inside of a minute, looking aloof.  “Nopony’s home.”

So she was looking for someone.  “Good thing, or a bad thing?” I asked.

“Don’t know.”  She took a folded note out of her wing, frowned at it, then held it out to me. “This was on the back door.”

I unfolded it, quietly noting that Deluge navigated the house with the ease of one who had spent more than their fair share of time here.  The note wasn’t dusty, but the paper—a stiff cardstock—was worn thin, on the verge of turning to dust.  The writing itself was practiced, clean, and precise.

Gone on vacation.

Feather Duster - Check the chest.

Fleet Hooves - Leave mail on the table.  Thank you.

Kusa Nagi - You’re free to go.

“The chest is empty,”  Deluge said, taking the note and giving the room a once-over.  “Everything  that was non-perishable is still here.  No thieves.”  She sighed, went into the back room again, then returned with a pair of saddlebag sets, one sky-blue, the other a light tan.  She gave me the tan set, then strapped on the other.  They were both empty, but my set smelled faintly of onions.  “Might as well,” she said when I looked at her.  I strapped them on and, when she left the room, slipped Descant’s scale and compass into them, one in each so they wouldn’t clank together.  She promptly returned with two bedrolls, one of which she gave to me.

There was too many unanswered questions, but the grim expression she wore was not one that would easily give answers.  I couldn’t rely on her to give me answers when they were needed, so I simply watched, observed.  Every creature on the planet—even the twin sisters—gave away subtle hints at their intentions and state of mind.  You just have to know where to look.

Deluge pocketed the note and motioned towards the front door.  “Nothing to do here.”

Her eyes were shifty, her steps tentative.  I didn’t move.  “...Where are we going?”

She didn’t reply.  My mind was racing.

“...Talk to me.”

Deluge’s mane swung forward, shielding her eyes.  “To find a friend.”

I froze, my head tilting even further down than usual until my entire face was hidden in my mane’s shadow.  The way she said it left no doubt as to what kind of friend we were talking about, and I did not care for that particular kind of friend no matter what package they came in.

Her head twisted to the side, still avoiding my gaze.  It was confirmation enough.

“How long?”

“Seven years,” she said.  “Give or take.”

I just looked at her, then kept poking around the room.  Moonlight lit the dust on a nearby coffee table; the silver light made my coat look pure white, almost like a ghost.

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” she said.

I ducked behind a sofa right before the front door opened, a yellow beam of light shone into the room, and a rough, stern voice spoke to Deluge; I wasn’t visible from the newcomer’s vantage point.

“Hooves where I can see them, please.”

She obliged, and I shrunk further behind the sofa, bands at the ready.

“Hello, Night Light,” said Deluge’s voice.  “How’ve you been?”

I stiffened.  The flashlight’s beam wasn’t quivering in the least, and the shimmering hum of magic limited my ability to intervene.  And the coffee table I’d walked around would make getting a safe angle on the guard too slow.  Yet...

“Don’t.”  Night Light stuffed her attempt at courtesy.  “Come with me, please.”

She followed him without protest.  The door swung shut behind them, leaving me conflicted and in silence.  I had no idea where we were and if my...reputation had spread this far; if it had, even just disabling the guard would raise too many alarms to escape from.  If it hadn’t, then it probably wouldn’t take long to reestablish it.  But without Deluge, I had basically nothing to go off of, no hints or leads.

I darted out from behind the sofa.  Night Light was leading her towards a central building whose sign I couldn’t make out.  He carried nothing besides a light guard uniform, and a vivid amber beam of magic lit their way forward.

If Deluge hadn’t mentioned his name I would’ve guessed she wasn’t doing anything to escape because his magic appeared more than sufficient to subdue her, but since she apparently knew him, she trusted him to some extent.  Which meant that even if I could knock him out without leaving any evidence behind, she might turn on me.

I slipped out the back door and took to the skies, circling around and gliding down towards them just as they disappeared inside.  I silently alighted on the roof, flattened myself against the roof, and turned my ear to the wood, but either the roof was too thick, or the only thing speaking was the wind.

My mouth curled itself into a frown and I sat back, flummoxed.  Intervening in any capacity seemed doomed to failure in one aspect or another, but I was slightly comforted by two facts.  First, that Night Light appeared to possess no animosity towards Deluge, and second, that Deluge had gone without protest.  Nevertheless, the wait was little more than a blind leap of faith.

A sort of prickly calm took over the night sky as I flew up to the trees, the kind of silence that pokes and prods, pricks and needles, but the anxiety that drove my uneasiness was brushed aside.  The only use I had for anxiety was its tendency to boost my state of mind into hyperfocus, but that was exactly what wasn’t needed here.

Instead I let my focus disseminate, picking up the rustle of songless crickets, the whistle of wind through leaves, the creak of weary wood.  The surrounding forest sighed under the weight of the night sky, the stars winking at me through the entangled leaves and branches.  I wondered vaguely if Dad was up there.

The door creaked open again, and Deluge emerged.  Night Light was right behind her, and they bade farewell before parting ways.  They gave me no indication of what had transpired, other than Deluge seeming perhaps a tad more downtrodden.  She made her way back to the house we’d first entered, presumably assuming I was still there.  I flew down to the back door, waiting until she was inside to enter.  She didn’t seem at all surprised to find out I’d tailed her.

“How much’d you hear?”

“Nothing,” I said, tapping a wall.  “Too thick.”

She plucked a small portrait off the mantel.  “This was me...and my fiancé.”

The picture was covered in dust and its color had long since faded to shades of their old selves, but both ponies it depicted wore smiles.  Not the broad, cheesy kind, but small, genuine ones, the ones that make everyone who looks at them want to smile right along.  One was unmistakeably a younger Deluge—her almost-transparent mane fell over her eyes in rippling sheets—while the other was a slightly-older stallion.  If I squinted hard enough, I could just make out his colors.

His coat was a pale orange, his mane an ivory white shot through with red streaks, and his eyes were a light hazel.  Tucked underneath one leg was a golden helmet with a blue-and-white crest, but my eyes were drawn to something else.  Leaning against his left flank, just visible behind his wing, was a sturdy-looking red hammer, fitted with gold insets and a set of leather straps clearly intended to brace the shaft against his back for airborne attacks.

“Meet Meridian,” Deluge said, not sounding at all like she was talking about her fiancé.  “First Lieutenant of the Solar Guard, Watcher, Caelum Division.”

I said nothing, so she continued.  “He volunteered to join a task force that was created for rapid-response to draconic threats.  Said their war was getting worse, might spill over into Equestria.”  She paused.  “Last time I saw him was a few weeks before our wedding, but he vanished before...well, before.  And that was a year ago.”  Paper crinkled as she pulled a crumpled letter from her bags.  “Night Light kept this for me.  ‘We regret to inform you,’” she read aloud.  “‘That Meridian Aubade, First Lieutenant of the Solar Guard, Watcher, Caelum Division, has gone missing in action.  Retrieval of his being, alive or dead, is underway.  We cannot in good faith guarantee his safety or well-being, but know that we will not rest until he is found.’  Sent six months ago.”

“I’m...sorry,” I said quietly, mentally running through my list and hoping desperately that he wasn’t on it.  I glanced up, expecting tears sooner or later, but Deluge’s eyes were dry.

“It was a risk.  It was always a risk.  I...”

“Get up,” I said sharply.  “We know where to look for him now.  He could still be alive.”

“I know.”  She got to her hooves and returned to the picture to the mantel.  “But if somepony hurt him...”

“Don’t.”

“Hm?”  She looked up, taken aback.

“Revenge is not what you want.  Trust me.”

“I know,” she repeated loudly.  “I’m more worried about us finding him than I’m worried about him.”

The moonlight visibly waned, bit by tiny bit, while she paced, thinking, and for the longest time, not speaking.  I didn’t move; there wasn’t any need to.  Deluge had to make first the step here, and I needed to think.

I remembered Deluge’s movement around the house; her navigation was fluid, not innate.  A house she frequented, not a house she lived in.  This was likely Meridian’s home, so Night Light’d only wanted to tell her about Meridian, I was sure of it.  Perhaps some other, more personal information, but that was need-to-know, and I didn’t need to know.

My gut squirmed as I thought of Night Light again.  Something about him was unsettlingly familiar, like something from a half-forgotten dream.  There was a connection I felt between us, something invisible, intangible, yet inexplicably powerful, wringing a corner of my mind like a wet towel.

“Caelum?” Something clicked, an old memory connecting with a new.  “Caelum Division?”

Deluge nodded.

“They were stationed in Riverside.  A town on the border of Draconia and Equestria.”  I closed my eyes, letting the memories flow.  “Emergency response force to dragon incursions.  As far as I know, they were never needed.”

“As far as you know,” she repeated doubtfully.  “Meridian never was much for doing nothing.”

“Nobody really is,” I said quietly.

She didn’t bother asking how I knew where the Caelum Division was, nor did she ask if I was lying at all.  And she hadn’t been afraid when she’d realized who I was; her first reaction had been to clarify that she didn’t need anyone killed, so there was some degree of trust between us, a product of the Calamus’ dance and the circumstances that followed.  Or perhaps she had just assumed that being in my profession practically necessitated knowing the whereabouts of any mid-tier-or-higher officials in a several kilometre radius.  If she had, she’d assumed correctly.

The guard building Night Light was in doused its lights, leaving us with only our night vision to see by.  Mine was fine, and Deluge didn’t seem hindered at all; having to pick out clouds from the night sky swiftly trains one to see in the dark, and it seemed that Deluge had had enough practice with that.

“Any place around here we can stock up?”

“Should be.”  Deluge peeked out the window; the moon was gone, and the sun was starting to shine into the house’s other half, turning the airborne dust into a field of bleary stars.  I frowned at the word should, but Deluge’s eyes were on the trees, their upper leaves still faintly aglow with moonlight.

Bidden by some unspoken pact, we spent the last vestiges of night in silence.  I kept playing should be over and over in my head, mentally wincing every time; it was a phrase rife with the potential for being wrong, and I didn’t care for it.  Deluge apparently didn’t care much to expand on it either, but she seemed no less aware of its shortcomings; she paced this way and that, feverishly checked the sun’s progress, paced some more, glanced furtively at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, then kept right on pacing.

I’d turned to the window and leaned against the wall what seemed like hours ago, and I hadn’t moved since.  Even if I hadn’t been watching the moonbeams fade, the sun at my back told me how far dawn had gotten, and I could see Deluge’s reflection anxiously pacing in the window.

As the sun cleared the horizon, the town woke, stretching and yawning like a beast out of hibernation.  The first pony to hit the streets was a white-maned, purple pegasus, who meandered around town, distributing letters and occasionally greeting the bleary-eyed townsponies with a cheery wave.

I edged behind the curtain when she neared the house, so she couldn’t see me from the window or the door, but she started fumbling with the doorknob.  A line from the note Deluge’d found flashed across my mind, and I dove behind the sofa again right as the door swung open, and Deluge almost smacked her head on the ceiling.  I lifted the sofa’s bottom flap; I could just barely make out the two sets of hooves.

“Oh,” the mailmare said, backing out.  “Sorry.”

“Wait!”  Deluge almost shouted, stepping forwards and crossing the invisible line between stranger and friend.  “Fleet!  It’s me.”

The mailmare continued to step backwards, sounding very much confused.  “Who?”

I could almost hear the realization arcing across Deluge’s face.  A stunned silence followed, and I heard a not-unfamiliar thwack.  “Wait, let me try that again.”  She steadied herself and recomposed her voice into one of pure class; for a second I thought someone else had entered the conversation.  “Hey, Flea,” she said smoothly.  “Long time, no see.”

Another stunned silence.  I inched forward; my muzzle would have a nice welt in it later.  There wasn’t many places one could acquire a voice with that level of class.  With her accent?  Not Canterlot.  Newstable, if I had to guess.

“De’?” The mailmare—Fleet Hooves, I remembered—sounded genuinely surprised, shocked, and a little put out, but after a second she threw herself forward and presumably hugged Deluge.  “De’, it’s been so long!  How’ve you been?  Where’ve you been?  Your mane’s gotten so long!  Any new rain tricks?  Just wait, I—”

One of Deluge’s hooves left the ground, and Fleet fell silent.  “In a minute.  First, there’s somepony I’d like you to meet...”

I stiffened, my mind stopped cold, every thought within frozen solid, but short of going through the window and attracting even more attention, I had no out.  Which ended up making it all that easier to act as my weakwilled alter-ego when the sofa was shunted aside.

“Hi,“ I whispered.  “Silhouette.”

“Hey,” Fleet Hooves said.  “Fleet Hooves, but you can call me Flea.  Like the bug.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that...“

She laughed at that.  An innocent, warm laughter bounced off the walls, one that might’ve once belonged to a schoolfilly.  “Hey, if De’s got no problem with you, neither do I.”

“Oh...okay.“

Most of Silhouette’s traits were my approximation of the mannerisms of one Fluttershy, an expert on animals whom I’d once consulted.  They were well-suited for misdirecting attention away from more telling details, like, for example, a curiously ambiguous cutie mark, or a mane that doesn’t quite mesh with the name Silhouette.

“Anyways, I’ve been abroad,” Deluge said.  “Not that many rain specialists in Equestria.  Just doesn’t have the same appeal as lightning or hail.”

“It’s not flashy or cool enough, yeah,” Fleet Hooves said.  Regardless of what she said, I was calling her Fleet Hooves, or just Fleet if I absolutely had to cut it short.  “You specialized at all?”  she asked me.

“Yes, wind.“  It was truth enough; I dabbled in lightning here and there, but Holly had been decidedly less than happy with my ventures in that particular direction, and had insisted on wind lessons instead.  “Nothing fancy.“

“Lucky,” Fleet Hooves said.  “I was never any good at the whole weather thing.  Too twitchy, my teacher said.”

I shrugged.  “It’s really not all that special.“

“Tell me about it,” Deluge grumbled.  “Every damn time something goes wrong with the rain...”

I neglected to mention that I hardly ever did any weatherwork.  The less I messed with the wind, the easier my job was.  There was more than enough room for lightning experiments since they stayed local.  But the wind...the wind always went beyond the horizon.

That was the one thing Holly had said that I actually wanted to remember.  Wind always goes beyond the horizon.

“Delivering mail’s good enough for me,” Fleet Hooves said.

As she spoke, I caught Deluge’s eye and shook my head.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they wanted to catch up with one another, but there were bigger things to worry about.  From her widened eyes, I knew she understood.

“Sorry, Flea,” Deluge said.  “We’ve really got to go.”

“I figured.  I gotta finish my route—apparently there’s a big load of packages marked for delivery to Riverside.”

My head snapped upwards, but luckily, Deluge beat me to speaking.  Had I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t have remembered that I was not supposed to be me.  I silently berated myself; such carelessness was deadly at best.

“Riverside?” Deluge repeated.

“Yeah, I figured you’d wanna come.”

“How’s—?”

“I don’t know.”  Fleet Hooves disappeared into a back room; the jingle of keys followed, as did the creak of an opening chest, the plunk-plunk of falling envelopes, the sound of the chest being closed, and Fleet Hooves calling back to us.  “They’ve been trying to find him for a few months now.  All I can say is, if you know what they might need four crates of swan feathers for, I’d love to know.  Don’t worry,” she added hastily, as I cringed and toppled a lamp.  “Just down feathers.  None of the swans were grounded.”  She paused.  “Or...killed.”

“Yeulgh,” Deluge said distractedly, clearly more concerned about Meridian.  “Must’ve taken forever to collect all of those.”

“Must be some pillow,” I said, causing the other two burst into laughter.  Fleet Hooves reopened the front door, and all three of us clustered by it, bound by a common destination.

Deluge said what we were all thinking.  “To Riverside?”

“Lemme finish my route,” Fleet Hooves said.  “I’ll meet you two at the post office.”

She took off, and I turned to Deluge.  “We need to stock up.”

“We will,” she said flatly.  “Once you put the sofa back and get those saddlebags on.”

I bowed my head, bit my pride, shoved the sofa back, and donned her onion-scented saddlebags, my wings half-extended in mild disgust.  “Better?“

“Better.”

We started off into the town, Deluge just one step ahead of me.  I kept my head slightly downwards so my eyes were hidden, avoiding eye contact and letting out alarmed squeaks whenever somepony walked too close.  The streets were mostly empty apart from the occasional pony; some were rolling barrels, others levitating crates, and still others immersed in chatter that ranged from rumors about Night Light’s actual mane color to the financial merit of boiling carrots.

Sunlight bounced off of wooden buildings painted every color, and I glanced up to see a steady stream of pegasi hauling packages to and fro; it seemed to be that the town’s primary function was to serve as a crossroads for various delivery services.  I belatedly noticed that the emblem buckle on Fleet Hooves’ saddlebags—a sealed and winged scroll—was emblazoned on the side of a large building, as was a number of other logos all clearly belonging to mail services of some sort.  One depicted a cannon apparently launching heavy fruits, and indeed, every few minutes there was a loud bang, and another oversized watermelon or coconut would take to the skies.

I turned to ask Deluge, but before I could, she led us to a stop in front of an unmarked building near the town’s outskirts.  Without so much as a nervous glare, she lifted the bronze knocker and knocked three times.

[A1.2] Pastel Golden Sun

Pastel Golden Sun

Deluge waited a beat for the knocker to settle, pushed the door open, and ushered me inside;  a wave of sweltering heat swept over us, and I stepped forward into a blacksmith’s dream.

A glowing forge pulsed at the cabin’s center, burning coal sending fiery sparks upwards.  Barrels filled with water sat close by, as did several anvils and racks of tools.  The outer walls were buried beneath broken armor, broken weapons, ingots of various metals.  The wall to my right seemed to be for a different pony; a smaller, closed forge was in the corner, and leaning on the wall next to it was two sets of rods, one metal, the other a clear material.

I peered past the column of smoke to find a soot-streaked earth pony working the bellows with a mechanical familiarity.  It was impossible to tell what color he was, but what little of his mane showing was a pure ivory white, and his cutie mark was a hammer and metal gear, bound together by rope.

“We’re closed,” he grunted, not even looking up.  At first I thought the anvil next to us had spoken; the stallion’s voice was low, gravelly, but powerful, and it did sound a lot like had an anvil learned to talk.  It had the same hints of the mesmerizing clang of metal on measured metal.

Deluge stepped around the forge, unabashed, but I noticed a slight hesitation in her step and that she offered the forge a lot more personal space than it needed.  Her voice, however, was as steady as ever; being back in her hometown and seeing old friends seemed to reawaken the classiness she was undoubtedly raised with.

“Pardon me,” she said simply, causing the smith’s head to shoot up, hazel eyes peering through the black fumes.

“Madame Deluge,” he said in wonder, then a transformation swept over him.  Gone was the rough, disheveled blacksmith I had seen, and in his place was a consummate professional tending to a customer.  He started forward and grasped her hoof.  “Forgive me, Madame.  It’s been too long.”

A slight pink tinged Deluge’s cheeks.  “Yes.  Yes, it has.”  She turned to introduce me.  “Silhouette, this is Firescale.  Firescale, this is Silhouette.”

“Hi.”  I thought privately that he might just be a dragon in disguise, but he carried none of their typical mannerisms nor the otherworldly ring of their peculiar names.

“Ma’am,” he said politely.  “It’s a pleasure.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” I said.  Blacksmiths were a real rarity anywhere near Equestria; to meet one personally was even rarer.  They were typically buried beneath requests for custom armor or pieces for researchers and scholars, and even less-skilled, aspiring blacksmiths could find steady work making armor and weapons for the military.

A smile touched Firescale’s face, and I found myself suddenly elated; it was a small smile, but nevertheless the kind of smile that radiates and makes everyone who sees it want to smile, too.  The smith turned to Deluge.

“What brings you here, Madame?”

“We were hoping to purchase some of your stock,” Deluge said.

“Iron?  Steel?  Madame, with all due respect, you know—”

“Yes, I do.”  Deluge took a breath.  “I meant the other stock.”

Firescale’s expression shifted to a mixture of suspicion and wariness, at least until Deluge spoke again.

“It’s for Meridian.  We’re going to Riverside.”

Firescale paled, but a look of extreme concern twisted his features.  “Riverside?  You do know—?”

“I do.”  She cut him off with such conviction that I reeled back slightly.

“In that case, ma’am,” he said, bowing.  “It’s on the house.  I’ll not have you empty your wallet merely to indulge mine.”

Deluge inclined her head and graciously accepted his generosity.  “Much appreciated.”

Firescale disappeared into a back room.  Deluge and I waited in silence; she apparently didn’t have much else to say, but I was rendered mute by the gently pulsing forge and the thought of spending hours relentlessly banging metal on metal, all the while bathed in its soft, volcanic glow and merciless heat.  I had patience, but not that much.

I also had questions that were multiplying by the minute, but now was not the time.

Firescale returned several minutes later ladened with four fastidiously wrapped parcels, which fit perfectly in our saddlebags.  They were slightly squishy, very hefty, smelled heavily of dried fruit, and—much to my annoyance—they left hardly any room for other things.  To my infinitely greater disdain, however, I could no longer avoid touching the now-bulky onion bags with my wings without looking both suspicious and stupidly awkward.  At least Whimsy’d get a good kick out of them.

“Thank you,” Deluge said, and despite my revulsion to now-inevitable onion-scented wings, I vigorously nodded my agreement.

“It’s my honor to help, Madame.  Would you like—?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very well then,” he said, bowing one last time before holding the door open for us.  “Will that be all?”

“Just one last thing.  Please send Cypress my regards.”

“Of course.  Madame Thrush will be pleased to hear you are well.” He waved.  “Good day, madames.”

It was with a slightly tense air that we left Firescale’s and headed for Fleet Hooves’ office.  Deluge walked with a stiffness that said she knew she wasn’t telling me as much as I needed to know; for the second time she hadn’t batted an eye when told that her destination was Riverside, although the implications hadn’t been quite as heavy the first time.  Firescale had very much sounded like he knew what was there, yet Deluge’s response had been as stolid as mine.  Either she knew, she didn’t care, or both.

Deluge came to a sharp stop in front of a small, dull-grey building and tapped on the door, which swung open immediately.  She didn’t bother ushering me inside this time; we both entered to find Fleet Hooves hanging her matched saddlebags on the wall.

“Oh hi,” she said a little breathlessly.  “Just finished, shipments due to head out in about...”

She pulled a necklace off her desk and checked a watch that dangled off it.

“Three minutes.  You guys got everything?”

We nodded in unison; the motion brought the reality of what was about to happen crashing into me.  As Fleet Hooves opened the door and led us into a midsized warehouse with a small group of pegasi inside, I sank into a familiar cold, loose focus, and assessed the facts.

We were about to head out to Riverside, the border town between Draconia and Equestria, with nothing more than a few saddlebags of food.  Deluge had no combat gear and likely little training or skills, aside from whatever rain manipulations she knew.  I was a little better prepared, but not by much.  And then there was the fact that our rendezvous involved an entire military division who might be less than happy to see me.  Or more than happy.  Either way boded ill.

And then there was the problem of what kind of debt Deluge owed and how I, a completely unrelated nopony, was supposed to grant resolution to that debt.  If it’s her debt to repay, what good would I do?  I couldn’t see myself doing much more than causing inordinate amounts of trouble.

And on top of that there was still the issue of how the whole gambit would help me find Lucifa.  I had to trust the Calamus, and Descant, and I didn’t.

The crowd fell silent as we approached; Fleet Hooves wordlessly parted the crowd with gentle shoves to reveal a two-by-two arrangement of massive wooden crates at the center.  It was immediately clear why there was so many pegasi loitering around; each crate would take at least three, maybe four pegasi to carry.

I did a quick headcount and came up with seventeen pegasi, plus Fleet Hooves, Deluge, and myself.  It was with some horror that I noticed two of them were clad in golden armor adorned with blue crests and stars.  They didn’t seem to recognize me, but regardless I couldn’t help an apprehensive shiver.  Fleet Hooves noticed, but misinterpreted it.

“We’ve got this, you don’t have to help,” she said.  “Liability issues and all that.”

“Fine by me,” Deluge said, and I nodded in agreement.  Fleet Hooves found one of the soldiers, who was looking suspiciously at us, and whispered something to him; his suspicious look was slowly displaced by a look of uncertainty as she spoke.  By the time Fleet Hooves turned back to us, both guards’ expressions had lapsed back into that of a dedicated professional.  She flew up to stand on one of the crates, instantly drawing everypony’s attention.

“All right, let’s get a move on,” she said loudly, causing the loitering group to shuffle their respective crates with surprising economy of movement; there wasn’t so much as a brush of fur between two ponies, and before I could do so much as get out of the way, everypony was in position, each donning a harness.  Each harness was attached to a crate by a length of thick rope and a pair of impressively intricate knots.

Without warning, at once and as one, the crates rose off the ground like a bear out of hibernation.  The wooden frames creaked but did not give, and with a veritable sheet of downdrafts, the pegasi carefully moved the crates out the open double doors.  Fleet Hooves and another green pegasus shoved the doors shut once everypony was clear, and the former flew down to lock it before they took off.

Slowly the group’s formation shifted from the square to a single column, with Fleet Hooves’ crate leading the way and Deluge and I taking up the rear.   Once the line was established, Fleet Hooves yelled something I couldn’t hear, and the group really took off.

After the slow tedium of the lift and departure, I wasn’t expecting a very good pace, but they proved me wrong, and I was glad of it.  It was hardly straining to keep up with them, even with two saddlebags full of dried fruit, but they kept a respectably swift pace and still maintained the precise coordination that they’d lifted off with, compensating here and there when winds battered against the crates.

The guards flew alongside us, drifting back and forth along the convoy as we went; my insides twisted as they passed, but both soldiers looked directly at Deluge and I once, twice, three times, each time without so much as a flicker of an eyelid.  By their fifth time past, my guts had untwisted themselves.  I almost relaxed, but there was enough on my mind—and my tail—without having to add two more guards to the list.

I lost count of my wingbeats amongst the flurry of others’, and where I expected there to be much conversation, there was none.  None of the mailponies spoke, neither of the soldiers made a sound, and Fleet Hooves at the fore didn’t make so much as a peep.  I was about as inclined to speak as a snail was to move fast, and Deluge appeared to have similar reservations, which was a little odd.  I had assumed she would spend the trip catching up with Fleet Hooves, but she seemed determined to neither speak nor leave my side, and for a while, she did just that.

“Firescale’s been a family friend for years,” she said out of the blue. “He’s a bit paranoid of disasters, and he’s got a bit of a bottomless stomach—so he always keeps a large emergency stockpile whereever he’s staying.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“No.  Normally he just keeps it for himself.”

“What was the last thing he offered?”

“A weapon.  Probably a blade.”

“You do know that—?”

“Yes.”  She cut me off with a sharp glare.  “What, you think I let Meridian go without at least knowing where he was going?  What dangers would be involved?”

I said nothing.

“He was fine the first time,” she continued, a cool anger swirling in her blue eyes.  “And if you’re assuming I’m helpless, you’d better think again.”

I shrugged.  “Just trying to be objective.  Ever met a dragon before?”

“Just one.”

“Descant doesn’t count.”

She looked at me, half-inquisitive, half-confused.  “And why’s that?”

“Did he try to eat you?”

“...Point taken.”

The way she said it, and the ensuing silence, told me that she now had an an idea of how dangerous tangling with a dragon could be.  More important than that, however, was that she all the warier; her form and wingbeats had become unnaturally rigid, stiffened by anxiety.

It was critical that she not rush to action if we went hoof-to-claw with a dragon, because if she assumed she had an advantage because her rain could douse their flames, then she would overestimate her own ability and probably be horribly maimed when the dragon turned around and starts breathing something besides fire.

The silence kept up for a long, long while.  It was a comfortable enough day for an extended flight; the sun above was warm but not scorching, the forest beneath us rose and fell, moved and curved with the land.  The sight of rolling hills with a blanket of trees wasn’t entirely foreign, but was no less welcome because of it.  Everfree had instilled a deep-seated fear of wooded areas into most Equestrians; even guards were reluctant to enter their nebulous depths.

The mail pegasi pressed on with mechanical determination.  Some of their precision faded as exhaustion started setting in, and every now and then a pegasus would wander a hair off course, but still the crates did not collide.  Beside me, Deluge echoed the fatigue I felt myself, but neither of us gave in.

Then the forest did start to dwindle, the trees dispersing like a crowd after a concert’s end, and as we went over a last set of hills, Riverside came into view.

##NULL##

[A1.3] Blanchéd Dove is Only One

Blanchèd Dove is Only One

The small border town of Riverside appeared as a dot on the horizon and—more alarmingly—it looked like a speck of dirt on a colossal bulwark of rippling glass that rose from the town’s namesake and extended far beyond anypony’s vision—both on either side, and vertically.  The thick wall vanished into the sky and didn’t appear to even think of ending until it hit the void of space.

A collective gasp ran through the group, and even I couldn’t hold back a foreboding shiver.  The rippling glass that comprised the wall was, I knew, water drawn forth from the river, and the concept itself was a contingency plan in case Draconic-Equestrian relations became less than favorable.  That the wall was active was a warning in and of itself.

I couldn’t tell whether the group’s surprise came from worry at that revelation, or just from awe at the rippling wall, but they did not slow their pace.  For the first time, genuine fear flashed across Deluge’s face, but she swallowed hard, her eyebrows dropped, and she set her eyes firmly on the tiny spot that was Riverside, a mixture of determination and fear solidifying in her eyes.  I couldn’t help a small smile; it was expression I knew well but had rarely ever seen.

Green foliage below us gradually gave way to golden stalks of a postcard-worthy plains, bathed in fading sunlight filtered through the wall; a wavering beach for the standing ocean that towered before us.  Through the depths of the rippling glass, we could see a mountain range’s silhouette and no more, but every now and then a dragon-shaped silhouette would wander across the watery crests.

I checked Descant’s compass.  Riverside lay on the west side of the river, Draconia on the east, so the compass should point upstream, along the river.  But it hadn’t budged.  It was still pointing at me.  I moved it around me experimentally, and the needle smoothly followed my moments, always pointing at me.  What was up with this thing?

Deluge gulped again when a particularly large shadow popped up, roaring inaudibly.

“He’ll be fine,” I said suddenly.

She gave me a look, half-exasperated, half-confused.

“Look.”  I pointed at the wall.  “None of them are trying to get through.  It’s not ponies they’re after.”

Deluge followed my gaze and found the truth.  “Well,” she began.  “We still have to find him.  He could be anywhere.”

The speck that was Riverside had split from a dot to several dots.  One of them stood far above the rest, and even from this distance it was clearly a gateway through the wall.

“No,” I said sharply.  “I know where he’ll be.  The tricky part will be getting past the wall.”

She suddenly turned to me with a viciously venomous gaze, blue eyes churning with rage.  “You know where he’ll be?” she repeated ominously.  “First you know where he’s stationed, now you know where he is?”

“Look,” I said calmly.  “One of my contracts had work for me here.  For me to work, I kind of have to know where every official within a few miles is.  Your fiancé w—is lieutenant of a special task force.  I don’t know what for, only that it was something specific enough that he couldn’t spare enough time to interrupt me.”

“Hm.”  Her muzzle scrunched in a very not-wholly-convinced way, but she left it at that.  Or she did, until we were minutes away from Riverside and the soft gurgle of the rippling wall permeated the air.

“So what about guards here?”

I nodded at the two that were escorting us.  “They don’t recognize me,” I said quietly.  “And if they don’t, the ones in Riverside won’t.”  Though it was no excuse for impetuosity, precious few could connect the callsign of my hoofwork to my appearance.  After the first time, I had gone out of my way to ensure I would not be seen.  But then, it is simple to not be seen when lightning reduces your entire appearance to a mirage made of shadows.

Deluge looked a little more reassured but had time for little else.  The Riverside-speck had blossomed into the glorious town that I’d staked out in for weeks before my last job; a small-but-dense forest of what looked like lighthouses with wide-open gaps at their tops for dragons.  It looked rather like a collection of chess pieces, except for the gate.

I had seen it before, but back then it had been inactive.  Rune holes carved into the black stone were now ablaze with swirling turquoise light, little whorls of white wandering this way and that along the gateway’s length.  The gate itself did not mark a safe entrance; just through its aperture,  a thick downfall thundered past, dropping straight into the river without so much as a single stray drop.  It looked more like a decorative waterfall than an entrance into Draconia.

Two figures stood in the archway, made all the more regal by the fluid cascade that was their backdrop.  One’s dark blue armor kept winking at me from the shadows, while the other’s sapphire scales did the same with about seven more colors.  The dragon—an Eastern dragon—was smaller than Descant, but an imposing figure nonetheless, undulating slowly as her kind were wont to do.  Other than those two, the town appeared to be deserted.

Fleet Hooves angled us straight for them, and one, two, three, four crates touched down, each crate’s squad still hovering at the ready.  Fleet Hooves, to the contrary, set all four hooves firmly on the ground before marching straight up to the purple unicorn.

“Good afternoon,” she said courteously, her voice loud enough for us to hear.  “I have a shipment due for Crimson Lotus.”

“Crimson Lotus?  He’s around.”  Emerald tendrils wrapped around the unicorn’s horn as he circled the crates, scanning their contents.  He trod around the convey with measured steps, his darkened armor glinting in the sun; I shivered involuntarily, but he passed us without comment, and when he was back at the front, he released the magic.  “Ma’am, just one question, if I may.  Who are the two mares in the back?”

“Friends,” Fleet Hooves replied without hesitation.  “They’re just looking for Lieutenant Aubade.”

“Ah.”  Deluge and I wordlessly joined Fleet Hooves at the fore, just in time to see the unicorn looking crestfallen, his true character hidden by the magic of the guard’s helmet.  “They’ll have to wait, I’m afraid.  We cannot open the gate for you at this time.”

Before anypony could say any more, there was the sound of rustling grass, and I wheeled around to find another soldier, an earth pony, standing behind us.  There was a odd-looking tangle of sticks and string slung across her back.  “Excuse me,” she said smoothly, her dreamy voice freezing the scene.  “Would one of you happen to be Fleet Hooves?”

“I am,” Fleet Hooves said uncertainly, having turned around at her name.  “May I ask who’s speaking?”

“Swan,” the earth pony said, still in that dreamy voice.  She removed her helmet, and immediately the metal’s magic faded, revealing her to have a coat of pure white, cared for so painstakingly that it shone and glowed like freshly fallen snow.  She swept aside a lock of jet-black hair, which swung back into line with her dirty orange, elegantly-curled mane, and examined us with eyes the color of honey.

“Um.”  While the transformation was striking, I found it more concerning that she had removed her helmet in front of complete strangers.  If she had worn it to meet us, then she was probably on-duty, but since she’d taken it off, she either wasn’t on-duty, or she just wasn’t afraid of the repercussions.

Swan nodded at one of the many towers surrounding us; now that I looked properly, each tower had a different arrangement of golden rings.  The one in question bore six rings, with four sitting near the base and two criss-crossed near the top.  “It’d be a huge help if you flew those crates up there.”

Fleet Hooves hesitated.  “What kind of feathers did you order?”

“Oh, right,” Swan said, smacking herself.  “Swan, Trumpeter Swan.”

Fleet Hooves looked relieved, and she motioned to the convoy to move the crates up.  As the mailponies obliged—some with hushed grumbling—Swan led Deluge and me into the tower.  Spiral stairs curled up the whitestone wall, leaving the tower’s center wide open, and the steps were spaced out and more than large enough for a dragon to climb them.  Swan had the short end of the stick; Deluge and I merely hovered along, dodging the crystal lamps, as she clambered up the steps with a speed—or rather, lack thereof—that she was clearly growing annoyed of.

“Here,” Deluge said, moving down and teasing Swan’s helmet out from under her leg.  “I can carry this.”

“Thanks.  I can’t stand wearing that for too long,” Swan said gratefully, skipping up the steps with unhampered agility.  “So...I don’t believe I caught your names.”

“Silhouette.”

“Deluge.”

Swan’s muzzle scrunched up instantly, and her head swiveled around so she could get a better look at Deluge.  “Deluge?” she repeated in wonder, mouth left agape for just a second before she pulled herself together.  “Of course.  Well, I was going to ask you what brought you to Riverside.”

Deluge made the connection instantly.  “Is he okay?” she demanded.

“Lieu—excuse me, Meridian—is fine.  He’s a little tired, but that’s it.”

“I need to talk to him.”

Swan’s step faltered ever so slightly; she reasserted herself and took the next step, making the trip-up look like a momentary hesitation more than a reeling shock.  The way her limbs splayed, however, exposed two things; the boot on her right foreleg had two miniscule hooks on the inner side, and the boot on her left foreleg had a long, raised strip of metal along the side, bent at one end so it looked like an elongated U. “He’s on the other side of the wall,” she said.  “But you heard Azimuth— they can’t open the gate right now.”

“Why’s that?”

I shot a sideways glance at Deluge, whose ears were upright with tension.  There was iron in her voice, an edge that demanded answers, but she honed it with courtesy and choice words; I had expected a sharp why not, not why’s that. Her two words were the last nail in my growing suspicions; here was a pony whose habits and manners were consistent with that of the highest of social classes, whose fillyhood was blessed with wealth beyond mosts’ imagination, and who bore invisible scars left by insurmountable expectations.  They may have been left by vastly different things, but they were eerily identical to mine.  If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t be able to tell our scars apart.

“Nopony knows how,” Swan said simply.  “Azimuth and what’s-his-face have been trying to figure it out for days.”

“Hmm.”  Deluge rubbed her chin, but by then we’d reached the end of the stairs, a red wooden door.  Swan lifted the latch and ushered us into into a wide-open room with enough space for several dragons.  An opening at the far end looked out over the rolling forest, which seamlessly blended into mountains at the horizon.

A pile what looked like thin wooden sticks sat next to us; to their right was the four massive crates and a black mound that looked like a pile of coal.  On the other side of us lay a neat arrangement of three sleeping bags, a few pairs of saddlebags custom-tailored to fit around the guard armor , and a couple of bales of hay.

Deluge’s eyes fell upon the crates and widened, then she quickly darted to the opening.  “GOODBYE, FLEA!”

And barely, just barely, I heard the mailpony’s response.  “Later, De’!  Later, Silhouette!”

“Damn,” Deluge said quietly.  “We’ve gotta catch up some time.”  The pegasus turned away from the opening to find Swan and I staring at her; Swan out of confusion at Fleet Hooves’ nickname, myself at Deluge’s sudden disregard for an indoor voice, though we weren’t really indoors.  To her credit, she took it in stride; she returned Swan’s helmet, then went to the opening again.

“I’m gonna go talk with Azimuth and the dragon,” she said.  “Maybe I can figure something out.”

And with that, she dropped out; I didn’t bother protesting or asking to help.  I would be more a hindrance than anything else trying to deconstruct a sky-high wall of water.

“I could use your help with something,” Swan said suddenly.  “If you’ve got the time.”

« § »

One lecture, over two dozen failed attempts, and about an hour later, I made my very first arrow that made it past Swan’s inspection without being immediately dismantled.  The sun was only just starting to touch the horizon, yet in the short amount of time since Deluge had gone to look into the rippling wall, the earth pony had somehow managed to make about four times as many functional arrows as I had even attempted to make.  Guess that’s what a cutie mark of three arrows does for you.

“Good!” she said, turning the shaft of my arrow over so she could see all the fletchings.  “Good, good angle, good spacing.”

I groaned a little, but reached back, withdrew her tangle of sticks, and deftly shook it; with a click-clack-click, it unfolded into a sturdy wooden bow.  It appeared to have one too many shafts until she slotted extra one into the groove on her left foreleg; the contraption limited her movement, but only slightly.  She moved to the far end of the room and, with one swift, practiced movement, nocked and loosed the arrow at one of the hay bales.  It hit dead center.

“See, you’re getting the hang of it,” she said, detaching her bow.

I groaned again, louder this time.  Craftsponyship and artistry were a foreign world to me.  Beautiful, exotic, but foreign.  I could’ve sat there trying to make arrows for days and I wouldn’t’ve gotten any better at it; the one supposedly good arrow was beginner’s luck for sure.  I still couldn’t verbalize what exactly was happening.

“Know why we use swan feathers?” she said suddenly.

I almost dropped the half-completed arrow I was holding.  “Uh...sure, I guess.”

“Swans are vain,” she said simply.  “They’re always preening.”

Around the time the sun had completely vanished, Deluge flew in through the opening, looking despondent.

“No good,” she said, as soon as she was within earshot.  “Azimuth and Canzonetta said it just rose about a week ago.  It didn’t look like magic to me, pegasus or unicorn.”

I remembered the dragon staring wistfully up at the passing torrent, her sapphire scales reflecting a veritable rainbow of hues, and a sudden thought struck me.  Might she be...?

“Hm.”  Swan tossed another arrow into the pile, but got no further; the sound of spirited chatter floated up the steps, and within a minute we had been joined by two new ponies.  Both of them were armored and both were carrying their helmets instead of wearing them.  One stopped abruptly once she noticed the room’s occupants.

“Ohhi!” she said.  She was a pale yellow earth pony with magenta eyes and a green mane which appeared to be unable to hang in anything but tangled clumps.  The other, a unicorn whose blue coat was so dark it seemed to absorb light, looked about as thrilled as one might be at a funeral, and wasted no time in haughtily turning her back on us, a wispy curtain of tinted silver swinging forward to hide her face.  Her ears were folded down.

Deluge hesitated, then advanced and introduced us both; I hardly heard her.  The concerted effort to make arrows had drained a lot of my energy, but what little I had left was spent shooting furtive glances at the blue unicorn every time nopony was looking.

I knew a number of Deluge’s secrets, and I could guess at a few of Swan’s.  Even the newcomer earth pony was dropping tells like she just got out of the rain; the way she kept inching towards her bags, the way her muzzle twitched in revulsion as she neared me, and of course, the knife and carrots on her flank.  If I could watch her for ten minutes I could pare the guesses I had down to three, maybe two.

But the blue unicorn...I could not guess at hers.  Even her cutie mark—a smudged black dot with a thin ring around it—told me nothing.

“Eve,” Swan said loudly.  “At least say hello, will you?”

The unicorn grunted, but did not turn around.  Deluge was frozen; only her eyes were moving, following the lazy swish of the unicorn’s gossamer tail, the rest of her face set in a sort of hard-baked expression I couldn’t even begin to place.

“A-hem.”  The sound popped the tension like an overinflated balloon; everypony stopped to look at the earth pony.  “Hey guys, I’m Juli, Julienne.”  She bowed.  “Caelum’s mess sergeant, at your service.”

She glanced at the blue unicorn, who was smoothing out her bedroll with an air of sharpened dignity.

“And that’s Eve,” Julienne whispered conspiratorially.  “She’s in charge of, err...cleaning up after us, so I’m guessing she’s not too happy to see you two.”

“Definitely not,” said Swan.

“My apologies.”  Deluge inclined her head politely, but her ears twitched by a hair.  “Deluge.”

“Silhouette.“

“Deluge?”  Julienne repeated.  “So you must be—oh.”  Her face fell, and she looked at Eve again.  “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The temperature seemed to plummet, the air crystallized, and even time slowed its immutable march at the sound of the word.  The voice—Eve’s voice—was rough and laden with bass tones, almost a growl, and did not seem like it belonged to a pony.  I did a double take and had to look around to make sure nopony else had spoken.  They hadn’t.

It was becoming harder and harder to resist the urge to stomp my hoof and demand an explanation.  There was more going on here than I could tell—which wasn’t entirely new, but it was starting to smell like danger, and I was surrounded by military ponies.  A single misstep could kill the entire endeavor and possibly me before I could do so much as unfurl my wings.

Deluge’s ears twitched again, and so did her wings; she didn’t look so much confused as worried.  Swan and Julienne’s eyes swiveled between Eve and Deluge, tracing a line that might as well have been an icicle, spanning the distance between the rain specialist’s blue eyes and the back of the dark unicorn’s head.

“So um,” I muttered.  “What’s that dragon doing here?”

Swan bolted upright, neck stiff and eyes wide.  “Don’t,” she said warningly.  “Don’t ever, ever call her ‘that dragon’.  Ever.”

“Her name is Canzonetta,” Julienne said firmly, rooting through her bags.  “And as far as we know, she’s the only one who can pass through the wall without being crushed.”

I bit my tongue as Swan deftly finished another three arrows and tossed them into the pile.  “She was on the other side at first, but when Azimuth showed up she came through to see if he had any ideas on how to get others through.”

“He doesn’t.”  Eve looked back at us, and I shuddered involuntarily.  Her eyes were a pale purple that had an otherworldly air about them, and they weren’t so much hard as...soulless.  Hollow.  Windows into a void.

Swan threw her empty quiver at Eve, who sighed, turned around, and began lifting the arrows one by one, floating them over her head.  The quiver began to glow gently, and as each arrow passed by her horn, she briefly touched it in turn, causing it to give off a blinding burst of light that possessed the same pale purple, cavernous look of her eyes.  The light quickly faded when she broke contact, leaving the arrows looking no worse for the wear, if perhaps a bit darker.

“Thanks,” said Swan.  Eve grunted again and lifted another string of arrows; Swan turned to us.  “You know you two don’t have to keep carrying those.”

Deluge immediately removed her saddlebags and bedroll.  I hesitated but followed suit, setting them down gently next to the opening, thankful for the dried fruits.  She dropped her bags beside mine, and we both turned around to find Julienne attacking a multihued spread of fruit and vegetables with a knife.  She looked up.

“I could use some wood,” she said kindly.

I instinctively looked to the wooden crates, but Swan was inside the only open crate, gathering another batch of feathers for fletchings.  The other three were still sealed; emptying the first would provide the needed wood, but it would also leave the feathers free to fly around, most likely into the fire that Julienne presumably intended to start.

“Why us?” Deluge asked curiously.

The chef shrugged.  “If you’re going to wait the wall out with us, it’ll be a while.  And y’know...none of us are pegasi.”

I waffled on whether or not to ask why Eve couldn’t help, but the periodic flashes of her odd magic were throwing me off.  There were only two ponies I knew of who could cast magic that didn’t look like a colored field of stars, and both possessed both wings and a horn.  Yet here Eve was, belting out spells that looked like she’d torn them straight from the blackened void of outer space.

Deluge nudged me and took off; I caught up with her once we’d cleared the opening.  Silver light from the rising moon welcomed us to the sky with open arms.

“Hey,” she said.  “I’ll get the wood.  You go talk to Azimuth and Canzonetta—maybe you’ll figure something out.”

“Wait.”  I swerved until we were face-to-face.  “What’s between you and Eve?  You guys looked ready to kill each other.”

Deluge sighed and flew around me.  “Can I get the wood first?”

I frowned.  “Sure, but if one of you gets killed I’m flying away.  Far away.”

She snorted disbelievingly and, without turning around, flew off towards the distant forest.  I watched her gather sticks for a while, just to make sure she wasn’t doing anything bizarre, before I glided down to the gate, where Canzonetta was still staring forlornly at the wall.  Azimuth, unlike the other three soldiers, had not shed his armor , and also unlike the other three, there were no other Lunar Guards nearby.

I walked up to him and stood behind him for a bit; he was engrossed in a particularly large rune hole on the underside of the archway.  It was odd seeing someone clad in the Lunar armor without disguised features; I hadn’t taken a good look at him when he inspected us earlier.  His coat was this peculiar shade of purple that reminded me of the night sky at dusk, but his eyes were a deep green, his mane a striking pale orange.  When he didn’t notice me, I took a deep breath and adopted the most formal tone I could.  “Azimuth?”

He wheeled about, but his eyes were calm.  The clanking armor of a Lunar Guard even sounded different than its solar sibling.  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

Silence and a meaningful glance at the wall was answer enough.  Canzonetta tore herself away from the water and swayed over to Azimuth’s side, gazing down at me with two icy blue eyes that rippled as the wall behind her, a world and a half colder than Descant’s golden pair.  I couldn’t help an apprehensive shiver; here, right in front of me, was an honest-to-Celestia Eastern water dragon.  Eastern dragons were rare enough—undoubtedly especially so, given the dragons’ decline—but a water dragon, too?  Virtually every dragon I’d encountered was a fire dragon; water dragons couldn’t be all that common.

Don’t ever call her ‘that dragon’.

“Greetings.”  Canzonetta commanded a voice as fluid, regal, and beautiful as the open sea, but it held the same hints of lurking peril, and as was characteristic of most elder dragons, it was a voice that breathed with the world.  I internally panicked at the sound—would she, like Descant, be able to smell the magic on me?  How much would she be able to see?  What would she be able to see?

“Know this one,” she said suddenly; Azimuth craned his neck backwards until he could see her.  “The Forbearer.  One with broken wings.”

I cringed, but stayed standing.  One and two.  Speech oddities aside, what she meant was terribly clear.

“Know what one has wrought.”  She paused.  “Have one’s gratitude.”

A shiver ran down my back.  Three.

“Whom one seeks awaits the other.”

Meridian was waiting for Deluge.  My dragon-given name.  What I’ve done.  I dropped my act.  She saw.  Saw it, knew it all.  There was no point in trying to hide it from her, and indeed within seconds she’d guessed why I had come.

“Wall.”  She straightened up and looked skywards, where the wall faded into the sky.  “Knows, breathes.  Stops from leveling other lands.”

“We need to get through.”

She arched her neck down, once again staring me down with her eyes of ice.  “Know not how.  The Sentinel cannot read runes, cannot bring others through wall.”

As I shivered at her name for Azimuth, she lifted one claw, brought it to the wall, and pushed it through the shimmering surface.

With a piercing hiss and the crystalline ring of shivering dragonscales, the water she touched vaporized, swiftly recondensing and plunging the immediate area into a whiteout fog so dense I could barely see the ground beneath me.  The tinkling of ice followed, vaguely from Canzonetta’s direction, but I could see nothing.

A sudden flash of emerald light cleared the fog, and I was left stupidly blinking to clear the lingering image of white.  Canzonetta had withdrawn her claw and appeared perfectly unaffected; underneath her was a dragon-shaped outline of tiny ice pellets, and her scales were as iridescent as ever, with not a single drop or scratch on them.

Then Azimuth approached the wall, lowered his head, and poked the wall with his horn.  Unsurprisingly, frigid water flew everywhere, soaking the gateway, the ground, and me, but I hardly felt it; once again, the water that touched Canzonetta vaporized, condensed, then solidified.  The resultant sleet bounced off of her scales with a cascade of lucent pings and tumbled to the ground to join the others.

Azimuth’s horn lit up, and with a burst of magic he dried us off; I shivered involuntarily.  “See, a water dragon had something to do with the wall’s creation, or it would crush her, the same as it would me.”

I floated around him to examine the runes, trying not to let my stomach growl too loudly.  They looked vaguely like the ones I’d seen on Whimsy’s new blade, but they might as well have been a bunch of chicken scratch for all the good that did me.  What did strike me as odd was that the runes weren’t merely engraved, but carved all the way through the archway, once sharp edges now worn dull.  “Aren’t they draconic?”

“No.”  He lit his horn again, and the runes holes spiraled to life with his emerald magic, rippling, pulsing, breathing.  “They came before.”

I raised my eyebrow, quietly wishing Whimsy were here.  What little history I knew I’d learned from her, but none of it predated dragons.  There was plenty of myths and legends that did, stories of fanciful fairies whose powers only grew with every retelling, and monstrous cross-breeds with creatures from Dreamscape, Tartarus, and Celestia knew where else.

“Before.”  Canzonetta rose above the gateway, inhaled, then exhaled slowly.  Out of her snout trickled a long snake of clear water.  “Only one.  From one came all.”

As she spoke, the water snake split into several smaller ones, curling and twisting around her, bending the moonlight so silver spots danced to and fro, wavering and rippling in little arcs that waxed and waned, brushed against each other then parted ways again.

From one came all.

Lucifa?

“Small, at first.  Few.  But time—time turned few to many, and many to legion.”

Canzonetta looked skyward, and every snake of water split again, expanded their orbit, then split again, then expanded their orbit some more.  Where there was no water the dragon breathed more.  The entire affair was completely silent save for her narration; not even the rippling wall seemed to want to stop her.  Within moments, the three of us were contained within a lattice globe of water droplets, still dancing this way and that.

Then the dragon brought her snout slowly downward, and the last of my breath was stolen away.

[A1.4] Silent is What's Left Undone

Silent is What’s Left Undone

Canzonetta gazed down at us with two lucent voids, brows furrowed, scales screeching like shearing steel with every movement.  Shining white light spilled from the chasms, and as she focused her concentration further I saw little glimmers of darkness twinkle inside the luminous depths, as though they were portals to another plane of existence.  Shades of blue flickered around the edges, where her scales only intensified the light, yet staring directly at her eyes caused not the slightest twinge of pain.

The dragon’s eyes flashed even brighter and she snorted; on her command the water droplets shifted, amorphous blobs giving way to little jagged squares and triangles.  I heard a sharp intake of breath from Azimuth’s direction, but I was beyond amazement.  The droplets were bending moonbeams in ways even Whimsy would have a hard time imagining; Canzonetta manuevered and manipulated the beams with an expertise that would’ve knocked Father flat on his back.  She growled, and the refracted light sharpened, moved towards each other, and with only the merest hint of hesitation, they converged.

At once a brilliant halo flared to life, a blazing silver-white corona that completely washed the surrounding area of color and left nothing but grey.  The ring of light bent and contorted itself with every blink of Canzonetta’s dazzling eyes, every slightest flick of her tail; she conducted the halo with an elegance and poise that I didn’t think dragons capable of, and with that feral grace, with a single fluid motion that seemed without end, she coaxed the light into a single, tiny pinprick and whispered softly.

“Before.  Only one.”

And the pinprick exploded, shattering into innumerable specks of light before my very eyes, but its core remained, resting at the center of the droplet globe, still irrevocably brighter than all the newly birthed stars.

“From one came all.  Small, at first.”

The dragon manipulated the moonlight projection, isolating a single star and expanding it so that its surface was dimmed to a dull sheen, like frosted glass, mere inches away from my face.

“But time turned few to many.”

More light-specks crackled to life on the star’s surface, giving it a thin coating of what looked like snow.

“And many to legion.”

The light-snow thickened, and the star took on the appearance of being a very shiny cotton ball.  I could hardly see Canzonetta or Azimuth for the newborn star suspended in midair before us, writhing and swirling like she’d trapped a full-scale tornado inside a glass ball.

Then the realization hit me.  The star-snow was jittering sporadically, but the spots’ movement was not without purpose.  They spread out in some areas and congregated in others, and—in what I now knew to be an accelerated recreation of the history of the universe—the jittering instantly slowed to a crawl, and all that was left was a modern-day Earth, complete with Equestria, Draconia, and every land beyond, none of which I could name.

With a twitch of her tail, Canzonetta enlarged a small part of the projection until we were looking at a perfect facsimile of three glowing stars arranged in a neat triangle.  One of the stars was gently pulsing an icy blue, another glowing a steady, vivid emerald, and the last was this dim grey that kept flickering white, like a dying candle.

“That’s new,” Azimuth said belatedly, but in a tone of more puzzlement than awe.  The small corner of my mind not entranced silently applauded his failure to be mesmerized by spectacle alone.  His eyes were all I could see of him; they were hard, attentive, and above all, analytical.  The dim grey star was visible in his eyes, still occasionally loosing bursts of white light, as though there was a burgeoning thunderstorm behind his eyes.

The projection slid from the three stars to something that was unmistakeably the nearby archway.  It was substantially dimmer than the stars had been and would’ve been practically invisible if it were next to them, but it glowed nonetheless, a faint but exact phantom replica of the gate, complete with runes and all.

Azimuth nodded and stepped forward into the projection.  “If you’ll look here, er...Forbearer, was it?”

It was bizarre to hear the name in a voice that didn’t breathe with the world, but the alternatives were either set myself up for later suspicion by using my alias, or just letting the cat out of the bag.  Neither would do, so I remained silent.

Azimuth pointed to a spot below the ghost-gateway.  “Even the earth and plants do not glow as we do, but this gateway does.  This is primal magic at its peak, invoked by ancients that predate any form of history we have records of.”

I had a fleeting vision of the first speck, the one that exploded into many and legion, and it occurred to me that it might just have been Lucifa giving birth to the cosmos.  I peered around the gateway and caught Canzonetta’s eye, white voids staring into my soul.  My voice sounded utterly pitiful after hearing that of a dragon.

“Mother?”

Azimuth nodded and closed his eyes.  “Lucifa.  Said to be the ‘origin of all that is good and mother to us all...’”

At once the projection twisted and the ethereal gateway vanished, and the moonlight reformed into what was unmistakeably an alicorn.  It was neither Celestia or Luna, but an alicorn I had never seen before who could only be Lucifa.  The colorless ghost looked like any other alicorn—tall, slender, graceful—except for one detail; her mane did not flow like those of the sisters.  I committed her appearance to memory.

Canzonetta drew a long breath and the projection receded, moonlight ghosts fading to a weak glow, then to nothing.  A swish of her head caused the droplets to return to the wall, rejoining the passing torrent as smoothly as falling snow on a hill.

“So the gate is primal magic.”  I let my voice assume its grating edge; it would be safer to keep my endeavors from scrutiny.  “What’s that mean?”

“It does not abide by the conventions of modern magic,” said Azimuth simply.  “Nor will it listen to our pleas, let alone understand them.”

I resisted the temptation to ask for Equestrian, but instead bade them a somewhat sullen good night and flew back to the tower, mind still ringing with echoes of the dragon’s performance.  Even if dragons could breathe the elements of nature, since when could they manipulate them like that, with that level of precision?  Even including Descant showing off, I’d never seen a dragon actually control their element once it had left their maw.  Canzonetta was something else...

A thought occurred to me as I neared the opening.  The Eyrie, the place where magic roams free...if it had guardians, dragons to contain it.  Would they not require more magic than most to fulfill that role?  Perhaps...perhaps Canzonetta’s extensive abilities were a result of that magic, which would make her an Eyrian guardian...and also a direct beneficiary of Lucifa’s spark.

I cleared the opening’s edge to find the three guards were lying in their bedrolls, apparently fast asleep.  Deluge alone sat on the tower’s lip, wide awake, the cloudbare moon reflected clearly in her eyes.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked quietly.  She shook her head.

“I...never got to say goodbye.”  She looked up.  “To Meridian.  I came back from a work trip one day and...and he was gone.  Nothing left but dust.”

I sat down next to her, but not too close.  If it were up to me, I would’ve bailed years before Deluge felt comfortable spilling her secrets to me.  I was trusting the Calamus, this odd shrine in the middle of nowhere, and its bizarre machinations to guide me to Lucifa.  It—Dad—had told me to grant resolution to Deluge, and I had assumed that would get me closer to Lucifa.  The Calamus was of her, after all.  So I sat.  And I listened.

“No note, no word from his friends.”  Her eyes hardened, soft blue turning cold with ice.  “He was loyal to a fault, but I swear to Celestia, if he ran off with another mare...or got himself killed...”

I suddenly wished I’d done a little more digging into what Caelum’s mission was, but as it was I could do little but sit and look impassive, trying to hide my apprehension.  It wasn’t obvious in the slightest how my influence was supposed to help their relationship, let alone not wreck it.  It was a field I knew nothing of, and I had no desire to change that.

“Look,” I said.  “We’ll get past the wall soon, and then you can ask him yourself.”

“That’s the problem.  I don’t know if I can.  His loyalty was something he prided himself on.  To question that...”  She looked up to the black sky, the void of empty space.  “It’d be the same thing as doubting him.”

“He left.”  Eve appeared behind us, for all the world a silent ghost in the night.  “Not with, but for, another mare.  More than that I cannot say,” she preempted Deluge.  “Not because I hate you, but because I literally cannot say.”

Deluge opened her mouth, but I beat her to the punch.  “Don’t bother pressing her.  Soldiers like her take magic oaths of secrecy that they cannot break.”

The dark unicorn looked at me oddly, but instead turned to Deluge, who was still gazing at the night sky.  “The sky is beautiful, I know,” Eve said.  “But you’re really going to need the rest.  Trust me.”

I bit my tongue before I could mention that tomorrow might involve fighting a dragon if we did manage to bypass the wall; it didn’t seem something I was supposed to know.  Instead I gave voice to something that had been bugging me for a while.

“Why does your magic look...different?”

She sighed.  “You’ll find out tomorrow, if you survive.  Good night.”

There was little left to do but oblige.  My mind was still full of Canzonetta’s display of finesse; I could hardly muster the energy to scarf down a few dried prunes.  Thinking coherently was impossible with the unruly night winds woven in seamlessly with the gentle breathing of the mare I could have been, and when I finally did find sleep, stars made of moonlight were still dancing behind my eyes.

[A1.5] If All I Am is Fortitude to End

If All I Am is Fortitude to End

“Hey,” said a quiet voice out of nowhere.  I leapt to my hooves, inadvertendly bowling aside a startled Deluge and spotting a haloed coterie of cumulonimbus clouds on the horizon, bellies full of festering thunder.  Flashes of lightning drummed out its heartbeat and a thick rain spilled from its underside, drenching the forest beneath and undoubtedly turning the tangled undergrowth into a tangled wet undergrowth atop a fresh batch of treacherous mud.

“Hm,” I said blearily.  “That looks ominous.”

“Yes, I’d like to not be around when it gets here,” Deluge said dryly, picking hay from her wings, but I was busy trying to figure out a way I could be caught in the storm, quietly.  I needed the lightning, but I also needed to stay with Deluge or it would raise red flags like nopony’s business.  Silhouette wouldn’t dare brave a storm on her own.

Eve was stomping out the fire and covering the ashes in the same black magic she had used yesterday.  All four crates were gone, as were the pile of shafts, the mound of arrowheads, and the bedrolls the other three had slept in.  The dark blue unicorn had yet to don her armor , but Swan and Julienne were already wearing theirs.  With the armor ’s magic unifying their appearance, the only way I could tell the difference was the takedown bow resting on Swan’s back.  The chef, on the other hoof, carried no real combat weaponry; she had only pair of chef’s knives, one of which she was sharpening with a small stone.

“What?” she said defensively, noticing where I was looking.  “What kind of chef gets caught with dull knives?”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said innocently.  “Are we ready to go?”

“No.”  Eve finished clearing up the fire, then turned her black magic to our bedrolls and vanished those as well, leaving the room spotless and unremarkably empty.  Then, with a flash of magic that seemed to suck the light out of the room, dark blue metal plates materialized upon her, its own magic morphing her into the grey-coated, dragon-eyed pony exclusive to the Lunar Guard, though the disguise did not mask the ineffable gleam in her now-golden eyes.  “Now we are.”

We traipsed downstairs with a cold sort of air between us.  There was a trust and ease between the three soldiers, but there was none between them and us, and it was easy to tell that everyone could feel it.  Deluge’s neck was stiff from an apparent refusal to so much as look in Eve’s general direction, and likewise I kept my head down and my eyes averted, and always stayed a step or two behind Deluge.  It would look like I was just along for the ride, and in a lot of ways—none of which were very comforting—I actually was.

So they were two Solar Guards were traveling with one Lunar Guard.  They were two sides of the same coin, to be sure, but in my experience they typically kept to themselves; the Lunar Guards operated during the night, and the Solar Guards during the day.  Communication between the two was minimal on the best of days.  And nights.

The only reason they would group like this is if there was an issue critical to the continued survival of Equestria or its interests...but this was a small group.  At least four soldiers—Swan, Eve, Julienne, and Meridian—but it couldn’t be much more than that, or there would’ve been many more arrows and a lot more food.  What could threaten the whole of Equestria but not warrant more attention than that of a small squad, no more than a dozen in number?

We arrived at the gate and exchanged casual greetings with Azimuth and Canzonetta.  Ragged breathing and bags under the Azimuth’s eyes were clear signs that he had not slept nor tried to, but he was wearing a small smile that did not seem concerned with the storm on the horizon.  It was hard to tell what Canzonetta was doing, thinking, or even looking at, given that she was hovering a good fifteen feet above us and that her snout kept drifting out of sight behind scaly coils.

There was the clinking of metal as Azimuth looked up at her.  “She says the storm is natural, and that if its magic were to collide with the wall’s, there might be some...oddities.”

Eve took a step forward and put her face within inches of Azimuth’s, but he did not back down or do so much as flinch.  “That could mean anything from ‘the wall is lowered’ to ‘we all die a horrible, slow, painful death’,” she said quietly, but the threat was there for all to hear.   “We could really use some clarification, Miss Canzonetta.”

At which the dragon looked down, and I took an involuntary step backwards.  Her eyes were ablaze again, not with the pure white light of the night before, but with a swirling, misty grey, like something had tainted the silvery white from yesterday night.  Her head twitched and jerked erratically, but it was always angled in such a way that she could keep the storm in sight.

“No,” she said to no one in particular, seized up as though she were possessed.  “Oddities, all natural.  One knows not...” She paused as a violent spasm thundered along her body.  “Knows not what will happen.”

“She’s been like that since the storm appeared,” said Azimuth.

Eve moved even closer; I could almost see their breath mixing in little foggy whorls.  “So why are you smiling?”

“The gateway’s—and the wall’s—magic is that of the ancients.  It’s the magic that birthed and shaped Equestria, every land beyond, and then some.  It’s older and more primal than anything I or even dragons could bring forth, but the land...”  He moved past Eve, uncowed, and stared, entraced, by the dark clouds gathering.  “The land itself is that magic.  If that’s a natural storm like Canzonetta says, then how it interacts with the wall will give us hints as to how that ancient magic works.”

Swan, Julienne, and Eve all grew stiff at the word ancient; Deluge merely looked confused.  I, however, had noticed something moving on the wall’s other side.  It was too small for a dragon, was predominantly brown, appeared vaguely pony-shaped, and seemed to be looking directly at us.

“Oh balls,” Julienne said quietly, noticing where I was looking.

“Not good,” Swan agreed, and Eve added several more colorful words under her breath.

The pony’s shadow raised a leg, paused, then rammed the leg into the ground.

A brilliant white-green light flared on impact and the wails of a crying star accompanied it, otherworldly tones rife with grief and regret, but as soon as my vision cleared I saw that the gateway’s rune-holes were now blazing with a bright, lime green light, a color nothing like any unicorn magic I’d seen—including Eve’s black magic—yet nonetheless the gateway started to rumble, the earth beneath it started to crumble to dust, and the black stone started sinking into the earth, like a turtle’s head when endangered.

“Huh.”  Azimuth could’ve been perusing a basketful of rotten apples.  “That’s interesting.”

When the archway’s top had receded beneath the surface, the dirt shifted of its own accord and filled in the gap.  Yellow grass to match the plains sprouted from the shifting dirt, growing from tiny stubs to full-size stalks in seconds, and when it had finished, the earth rumbled as though being dismantled from the inside out, throwing a startled Julienne to the ground and permeating the air with the impossibly low, impossibly loud grinding of stone on stone, like one mountain scraping against another.  Yet despite the volume, I could still make out Canzonetta’s voice, her normally fluid tones marred by the jagged edge of worry.

“Sunburnt sands are shifting,” she said, putting a frown of concentration on the Azimuth’s face.  “Moving to oblivion, to nothing...echoes and ashes move to the void.”

I was quietly thankful that my grumbling couldn’t be heard over the quaking Earth—at least Descant talked straight most of the time, but the water dragon seemed flat-out incapable of it.  It was challenge enough trying to glean the need-to-know bits of information from what I perceived without someone trying to muck it up or make it all nice and poetic.

Just the thought of the word oozed enough pretentiousness that I almost puked.  Beauty in words wasn’t my problem with it; my problem was most poets I’d encountered got so caught up in beauty-in-words that they forgot to see the forest for all the words they could dress it up with.

Far, far above us, the watery wall started to drop.  Slowly, at first, then swiftly, pulled by something far stronger than gravity alone, and within seconds it had retracted completely.  The only trace of its existence was a fine mist, gently drifting in the wind as it fell earthward.

On one side of a small river was us; two pegasi, two armored earth ponies, two armored unicorns and one coiling blue dragon, who was still jerking about erratically.  On the other stood a lone, hooded earth pony, her coat the color of the desert and a nondescript brown cloak concealing her cutie mark and Celestia knew what else.  A simple silver ring kept her cloak on.

Metal clinked behind me; I felt the guards shifting uncomfortably.  The newcomer stepped forward, skipped across the river, walked past us without so much as a glance at any of us; we parted wordlessly, unsure of what to make of her.  I noted the unbidden absence of dragons in the skies.  She approached Canzonetta with a steely conviction; the dragon’s convulsions intensified and water sprayed from her snout, but the cloaked pony merely waited.

And waited.

...and waited.

Until at last the dragon floated just a little lower, and the pony deftly reached up, laid a gentle hoof on her sapphire scales, and spoke.  “Cool it.”

Her voice was odd, almost alien; here was a flash of brilliantly green light, and the dragon’s convulsions stopped instantly.  The water she’d leaked was withdrawn back into her, the mist overhead shuddered visibly, and she drew one, long, shuddering breath before bending down to meet the newcomer.  “Gold and silver,” she murmured.

“Straight-up.” The pony turned to us.  “You two,” she said to Deluge and me, and I found myself unable to call her anything but Dust.  “Nose out, if you don’t mind.  And the rest of you, keep it up.”

Swan and Eve took a few steps back; Deluge and Julienne bowed courteously, and I struggled to keep the confusion off my face.  Azimuth hadn’t lost his inquisitiveness, but he thankfully remained mute.  I could make precious little sense as it was without his interference.  Just who was this mare?

Canzonetta touched her snout to the newcomer, then plunged into the river and mysteriously vanished from sight, despite the clear water.  Dust was a little more polite and nodded to us before doing the same; the current carried her along for a second before she, too, simply vanished.

“Huh,” Azimuth said, after a few seconds of stunned silence.  “It would seem that dragons can use their medium as...a method of transport.  For themselves and others.”

At which the blue dragon erupted from the water, blanketing the sky with mist, sparkling with every color of the rainbow.  She coiled her way back down to us, and inexplicably I found myself face-to-face with a water dragon who had very little sense of personal space.  Shifting waters rippled within her blue eyes, and I vaguely wondered if any sort of that same soulful energy was visible within my own.

“Forgot,” she said, in her normal voice.  “Have no aid for this one, one must aid oneself.  Apologies.  But...”

She moved her head to Deluge’s, and touched her snout to the mare’s muzzle.

“One with crystal eyes.”  She met the mare’s eyes, as blue and as fierce as her own, and her pupils sharpened suddenly.  And, in a wholly different voice, one that rang with renewed clarity and mutual understanding, she said, “I will see you soon.”

The mare’s eyes had widened already, but she only looked more stunned when Canzonetta whipped her tail in between them, bit off a scale, and offered the shimmering, humming piece of herself to the pegasus.  Deluge took it gracefully with her own mouth and without breaking eye contact; I could tell she was trying desperately to maintain her composure, but there was no hiding that kind of amazement.  I wasn’t even sure I was managing to pull it off.

“Thank you,” she whispered reverently, the words clear despite her mouthful of scale, and the dragon nodded.

“I will have another gift for you later.  Goodbye.”

The dragon dived back into the river, and she was gone.

The mist finally reached us, dampening everypony’s coat and giving the guards’ armor a glistening sheen.  Nopony seemed to want to talk, and only a couple seemed to want to cross the no-longer-sky-high river.  Deluge was clutching the dragonscale and looking up, eyes closed, soaking in the mist.  Azimuth was scratching figures into the dirt, mumbling something about missing variables and deteriorating paradigms.  The others, however, looked heavily concerned, and for once they shared the same, wordless expression, a feat normally made impossible by Eve’s constant brooding.  It was an expression bereft of levity and laden with concern.

“What’s wrong?” I said sharply.

As one, they turned to me with looks of darkness, but not one of them spoke nor even opened their mouth.  Azimuth appeared at my side, but he, too, shared their symptoms.

“Oh,” I said, the truth dawning on me; their oaths bound them, prevented them from divulging their mission.  Yet by that very oath, two things was clear, one of which I’d already known; the cloaked mare was something...different, and the same mare was somehow involved in their mission.

And it would seem that, from their stunned and unfavorable reactions to the mare’s appearance, that she was not supposed to know about their involvement in...whatever it was.  There was another story here, somewhere, hidden in the shadows, lurking out of sight.

Interesting, indeed.

Deluge opened her eyes to find four completely inscrutable ponies and me with my nose in my wings.  Her elation had yet to wear off, but she gave me a curious look that strayed uncomfortably close to the emerald dragonscale in my bags, sandwiched between two packs of dried apples.

“We need to talk,” I said shortly.  I nodding curtly at the sky, then turned to the guards.  “Can we have a couple minutes?”

Eve nodded; the others said nothing.  Deluge and I took to the skies in a rush of wind, and we found a pocket of still air high above the river.  Her elation faltered slightly when she turned to face me, and I felt suddenly compelled to share a secret.  It wasn’t something that was inside my comfort zone, but it seemed that she might know a little more than I do, and finding out what was a little more important than keeping an otherwise shiny-but-useless trophy a secret.

“Yes, I have one too,” I said, withdrawing Descant’s scale.  “No idea what they do though.”

Deluge’s mouth fell open.  “Don’t you see?” she said breathlessly.  “She knew I specialize in rain.  She’s a water dragon.  This—” She lifted her dragonscale.  “—has to have some secrets on how to manipulate water.  So yours—yours must have tips on manipulating wind.”

I looked down, at the shimmering green souvenir from a lightning dragon, and I felt an unbidden mixed rush of fear and elation.  Lightning was Holly’s area of expertise, not mine.  I knew a few tricks; the scale could teach me more, I was almost certain.  It couldn’t be coincidence that Descant had just given me one—the dragon might be one for formality and melodrama, but never did he strike me as one for souvenirs.

But in a lot of ways, lightning was the reason Holly was no longer here, and Deluge thought it was from a wind dragon...

“Later.”  I put the scale back in my bag.  “For now, we need to stay sharp, and you need to know we’re probably about to fight a dragon.  Maybe more.”

“I—what?”

“Think about it.” I pointed at the river.  “Giant wall of water keeping us out, or them in.  All is well out here, so...”

“Something’s wrong inside,” she completed.  “...I see.”

“Those three are part of a bigger unit than can fight dragons.  Meridian’s unit,” I added.  “But we might not make it to them without your help, if you catch my drift.”

“I don’t know.  Maybe.  They seem like they could hold their own.”

“A chef, an archer, and a...” I hesitated.  “...yeah, I have no idea what Eve is.”

Deluge nodded sagely and said nothing.

“Okay okay,” I admitted.  “Eve might be able to do it.  You’re welcome to sit idly by, but I’m not going to.  I’m not walking away without knowing I tried.  But,” I added emphatically.  “I’m not going to kill it either.”

I didn’t even bother to look at her, instead choosing to peel off downwards and brush a cold wind in her direction.  Whether she helped or not didn’t matter much to me; taking down a dragon wasn’t easy, but I’d done it before, and I could do it again.  What did matter is how many of my...skills would be needed.  I had an inkling of what Eve might be, and if I was right, then spotting things that were hidden was part of her speciality—even something as small as proving I was faster than almost any pegasus alive would tip her off for sure.

The guards were having a quiet conversation, each wearing the weighty expression of business; I landed much farther away than necessary and sat down to wait.  I didn’t need to overhear them, nor did I need them thinking I wanted to or even could.  Instead I just watched the storm drenching the fields in its tears, still belching roaring bolts of lightning.

Deluge landed next to me a few minutes later.  She was tense, but determined.  “I don’t know what good I’ll do, but I can try,” she said, an all-too-familiar steely conviction shining in her eyes.  I simply nodded; the others appeared to be in no hurry, and it didn’t take long for my focus to disseminate.  My vision blurred, my ears heard the world instead of a voice or the river, and my mind went on a journey with no destination.

The sound of gurgling water sang alongside the whistle of grass, rippling in the wind, the muddled words and shifting metal of the guards, the quiet chatter and soft pitter-patter of countless hidden insects and animals.  Clouds—mostly cumulus and cirrus—trundled along the open sky, casting colossal shadows that wandered across the amber plains like harbingers of some nebulous corruption, only to leave behind unscathed stalks, glowing brilliant gold in the midday sun.  I vaguely wondered what it looked like, sounded like, felt like, at night.

The guards’ conversation slowed as the sun inched onwards and the storm closed in, and eventually the Azimuth finished his musings and joined them, his expression equally grim.  It was odd seeing a guard of his stature on even ground with the others; his armor was nearly identical to Eve’s, perhaps just a touch darker, but unlike hers, his armor did not mask his appearance.

What was reassuring was that none of their eyes ever flickered in my direction.  The same, however, could not be said for Deluge.

“You don’t seem afraid.”

It took a few seconds for my focus for Deluge’s words to penetrate, but it was one second too many.

“...You’ve fought a dragon before.”

I inclined my head.  “I have.”

“Did you...win?” she said breathlessly.  I just looked at her, face blank.

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened, and she uttered a soft wow.  I could only sit there, silently dumbfounded.  There was no pride to be had in doing what must be done, but there was plenty in adding your own flair, and that particular job was one of the few things I was genuinely, if morbidly, proud of.  I was shocked; most ponies failed to see that destruction had a flavor of beauty all its own.  Deluge, eyes shining, was clearly not most ponies.  Not only did she see the grim beauty in my work, but it was the first thing she saw.

I felt myself reddening.  “It really wasn’t all that hard...”

“Yeah, okay.”  A sly sort of grin curled her mouth, but it slid off just as quickly.  “So, how did you come to get a job like yours?”

A lump rose in my throat, and my stomach twisted itself into knots.  I watched a line of ants scale a flower and slowly haul the carcass of a dead fly back to their colony, each ant clinging to the stem for dear life as it swayed this way and that in the wind.  “Not by choice.”

“Hey,” she said softly.  “You know my story.  When do I get to know yours?”

I extended a wing and straightened some crooked feathers, letting the wind whistle, the leaves rustle, and the unseen animals chatter in my stead.  She did not press me, but simply sat there, mute, waiting.

Minutes passed in silence.  I moved to my other wing with no excessive amount of haste, but it was becoming more and more apparent that the rain specialist possessed the same brand of prolonged patience that I had come to possess.  It made sense, I had to admit; stirring wind to life didn’t take nearly as long as drawing rain from nothing but air.

What seemed like hours elapsed.  I found I could no longer let my focus fan out; I could barely hold a coherent thought for more than a few seconds.  My mind was utterly blank, empty.  To most, it seemed, such release would be relaxing, but to me it was just a stifling blanket of calm that had settled over my storm.  One of us was bound to break, and still she sat there, implacable, still, unwavering, with more patience than I could ever hope for.

“I...lost control when I was young.  At the time I had these—” I held up my bands and shook my head.  “Didn’t know what they did.  Had a body on my hooves before I knew what’d happened.  I took all I had and ran, but when somepony finally caught up...” I took a breath.  “...they weren’t part of the government.”

“What do they do?”  She nodded at my bands.

I pulled one off and gave it to her.  It felt unnatural, casually sharing secrets with a mare I’d only met days ago, but she’d shown no signs that she was even thinking of turning me in.  And whatever our circumstances may have been, we were two peas in a pod whether we liked it or not.  “My father made them.  They’re solidified cloud, bound by magic.”

We both turned at the distant roar of thunder; the storm was minutes away from Riverside.  I stared longingly at the lightning, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Deluge look at me, then at the storm, then back at me.  She returned my band, flew over to the guards, talked to them for a moment, then flew back to me.

“Let’s go,” she said simply, and I knew she understood.

I had never flown into the heart of the storm with anypony at my side, but flying with Deluge was unsettlingly comfortable.  She wasn’t able to keep up with me, but even so she matched my every dip and dive, every sharp turn I made to avoid becoming lightning-fried pegasus.  This wasn’t her first time weathering a storm, that much was certain.

I jinked this way and that, feeling the restless charges in the air, feeling the two clouds tugging at my being as if to rip it in two, smelling  the metallic scent of burgeoning lightning.  It didn’t take long to find a negative cloud; I pressed my left band against it for a few seconds, feeling the magic-bound cloud equalize, and a little ways off I did the same with my right band and a positive cloud.

Satisfied with the soft vibrations of my freshly charged bands, I made sure Deluge was still with me and led her skyward, a safe distance above the storm.

Wordlessly I turned to her, extended my forelegs, and willed the lightning free.  A thin, white-hot bolt, barely tinged with blue, leapt between them with a quiet boom, but I let it fade before it could fully coalesce.

“If I let it go longer, it becomes solid,” I told her.  “But yeah...wasn’t expecting that the first time.”

She ignored my addendum, and we both turned away from the storm, gradually descending towards the guards.  “Solid?  So you can like...make a spear?  Out of lightning?”

“No.”  I twisted them around my hooves.  “They’re not mine—all I can do is form a garrote, or just shock someone.  The one they were made for was able to form all sorts of blades and throw them, if sh—they wanted to.”

“So...you stole them?”

“Not...exactly.”  The conversation was steering uncomfortably close to black waters that I’d rather stayed uncharted.  She didn’t inquire further, so after a little bit I took a different tack.  “So what happened to you?  I take it you grew up pretty wealthy, so I’m not sure how you ended up, y’know...here.”

She sighed, nodded, and thankfully let the subject drop.  “I did.  It’s why Eve hates me.  She wouldn’t even talk to me if she weren’t on duty right now.”

“She hates you for being wealthy?”

She nodded.  “Sort of.  I turned down my dowry when Meridian and I got engaged.  It was more than enough to set just us two up for life; Mer’ would’ve shared some of it with Eve for sure.  It never felt right,” she blurted, before I could ask.  “Having all this stuff that I never earned.  Money, chariots, mansions, servants, airships.  It’s what my parents built, what they earned.  Not me.”

Deluge landed on a safe cloud and tucked her wings in; I did the same, and she kept talking.

“I was raised in high society, as you’ve figured out, but all that...pomp and circumstance.”  She leaned over the cloud’s side and spat viciously.  “It’s all so self-indulgent, ostentatious.  Everything that’s needed or must be done, buried in red tape and subtle formalities so that a select few might profit.  Mom understood my complaints; Dad tried to, but couldn’t.”

She pulled a puff of cloud out, absentmindedly twisting it.  “So I ran.  One night, Mom packed me the necessaries, and I escaped with Flea, the mailmare.  She brought me to her hometown, which she called Relay, where she was learning how to be a shipping pony, and I met Meridian there.  He was working as Firescale’s apprentice, at the time, and the blacksmith took me in.  I’d met him before—my parents regularly visited him—but he never held it against me.  I keep in touch with Mom now and then, but Dad...I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me.  He’s probably disowned me, actually.”

A little shower of rain drizzled from the cloud she was playing with, dropping towards the earth, falling out of sight. “It’s probably better that way.  He expected more of his little Deluge than just another weatherpony.  But yeah, that’s why Eve hates me.”  She laughed coldly.  “Though it did take a while to drop all my formality habits...Mer’ helped a lot with that.  Standing on ceremony is...not something he’s good at.”

“He agreed to name you Deluge, and he was disappointed when you wanted to be a weatherpony?”

“I changed my name.”

She slipped off the cloud, and I followed suit.  When landed next to the guards, all them immediately turned to us.  I skipped the Silhouette act; Eve had enough reasons to be suspicious of me without that.  With luck, the others would have forgotten about it in light of recent events.

“We know,” Deluge preempted them.  “Potential fight with a dragon.”

“Hopefully not,” Eve said.  “We’re in no shape to fight one without the rest of our unit.  Normally I could hide us but...well.”  She threw up a hoof helplessly.  “You two have magical signatures I’m not used to, and I’ll not have either one of you mauled on my watch.  Even if I do hate you, Miss Deluge.”

I had to admire Eve’s continual insistence that she hated Deluge, yet her professionalism in spite of that.  But there was a more pressing issue, and that was how much of myself I would have to expose in order to take down a dragon; using my bands would be a near-guaranteed solution and an instant giveaway.

“You could always leave them behind,” Azimuth said dryly.

Swan glared at him.  “Like Tartarus we are.  I’ll keep an eye out, Eve keeps us hidden, and we can make it to the others just fine.  Easy.”

There followed an awkward silence.

“And if we’re found?” said a quaking Julienne.

The archer laid a reassuring hoof on her friend, but it was me who answered.

“Then we improvise.”

Azimuth sighed in resignation.  “Not again.”

[A1.6] If All You Need is Me to Work, Then, My Friend

If All You Need is Me to Work, Then, My Friend

Eve threw a veil of her starry void over all of us except Azimuth, who had other business to attend to.  The shroud was translucent enough to see through, but not enough that it didn’t feel like we were walking in a mobile observatory; I stepped outside for a moment just to make sure it did indeed keep us all invisible.  It did.

Deluge and I ferried the other three across the river—Julienne with some effort, as she’d found a healthy stock of odd blue mushrooms and refused to leave it behind—and we entered Draconia with little besides Eve’s shroud and her word it would keep us hidden.

The guards kept in a loose formation that kept Eve away from the front line; Swan forwards and to the left, Julienne on the right, Eve in the middle, and Deluge and I at the rear.  We were to remain earthbound to keep us from stirring up air currents, which annoyed Deluge more than me; she kept rustling her wings and staring up at the sky.  I had long since learned that no matter how fast you flew, someone was faster.  Going unnoticed was a wholly different advantage.

A twilight shroud, as Eve had called it, didn’t seem to take much of a toll on her.  She unsurprisingly hadn’t disclosed any more of its mechanics, but however it worked, it was probably more an exploitation of nature’s laws than a bending or breaking of them; her horn was hardly glowing.

Swan, however, had her bow at the ready, and her gaze flitted between the distant mountains, the rolling hills, the occasional tree, and the crumbling ruins of three once-grand draconic spires.  Skyways bridged all three together, but apart from those and a few wispy cirrus clouds, the sky was empty.  She kept a wary eye on it anyways, watching, waiting, for any rage-ridden dragons.  From what I could tell, most were, if not reasonable then at least nonviolent, and hadn’t succumbed to that kind of blind anger.  But then, it only took one.

I did notice, however, that once again Swan carried no arrows; she hadn’t carried any back in Riverside, either, but I had assumed that was because she was off-duty.  There was a small protrusion on the side of her body armor that looked like it was supposed to hold some, but it was empty.  She probably had some stashed away somewhere—she had to.  I couldn’t think of where, but admittedly I trusted her over the other two, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.

Instead I kept my eyes on the spires.  Unless another pony shared Eve’s abilities, they were the most likely avenue of attack, and thus far I had never seen any unicorn whose magic looked like hers.  The spires, made of more black, volcanic rock shot through with red and orange, were beyond repair; large chunks had fallen off the sides, and time long since had eroded tips that could’ve once pierced the sky.

A stale sort of chill settled over us as we neared the spires.  At a closer distance, we could see black shadows of crows circling their tips like so many flies, and with some concentration, I could hear a faint humming—a faint breathing—coming from the volcanic stone.

“Timid Thunder lived here, once,” Julienne said quietly.  “A vacation house, I think.  One of, like, two Wardens that worked outside Equestria.  Imagine actually living in a dragon spire...”  She sighed happily.  “He must’ve had a blast.”

I shuddered a little.  Timid Thunder wasn’t a new name to me, but I hardly knew anything about him.  What I had heard of him, however—a fondness for titles and curt formalities, for example—was a peculiar combination that he shared with someone I’d met a long time ago.  What they didn’t share was the station of the Warden.

“So, you figure out that dragonscale yet?” I asked Deluge, still avoiding the Silhouette charade.  Doing it now would only draw attention to it; if Eve had noticed the change, she didn’t seem to care, and the other two hardly seemed to remember I’d introduced myself as somepony very different.  In all fairness, they had more important matters to consider.

The rain mare eyed me oddly.  “Haven’t had time, and I’m not doing it here anyways.”  She nodded at Eve.  “She’s got enough on her hooves as it is.  It can wait.  I can wait.”

Which I might have believed, if her wing didn’t keep clenching over the bag that held Canzonetta’s scale.  Something rare enough—or buried deep enough—to never appear in written history, or rather any history Whimsy had encountered, was sure to have its secrets, but it was a gift regardless.  If I hadn’t received a scale of my own from someone who championed innocuity, I would’ve suspected such a gift would have any multitude of strings attached.  Manipulation just wasn’t Descant’s style—and weird though she might be, Canzonetta seemed no fonder of it than he was.

We arrived at the base of the northernmost spire without incident, but overhead the crows kept circling, waiting for something to pass over that they might reap its remains.  I couldn’t see anything, nor was anything moving on the spires, but there was no reason for this many crows to congregate unless there was something to scavenge.  There was one shadow of a bird that seemed just a little different, just a little brighter, than the rest.

“Eve.”  I moved up next to her.  “Can I fly up there and see what they’re waiting for?”

She didn’t even turn around.  “Make it quick.  And don’t die on me.”

A globule of the shroud peeled off with me as I flew through it, and it shimmered around me as I ascended, flickering white with every wingbeat.  I realized halfway up the spire that it was nullifying the wind currents I was making; Eve clearly had practice with hiding pegasi.

I realized belatedly that finding the group again might be near impossible, but a glance downwards revealed that I could see them just fine, despite Eve’s shroud.  At a guess it seemed likely that those inside one shroud could see into another, which made sense if she were part of a unit.

As I drew level with the nearest spire’s tip, I scoured the flocks for the raven amongst the crows.  I had had a sneaking suspicion when I had first noticed the outlier, that maybe, just maybe, beneath its feathers and wings lay a secret I already knew.  The suspicion solidified when I found a pure-white raven hovering right behind me; albinoism aside, regular birds were not capable of that feat, save for hummingbirds and a select few birds of prey.  It had bright red eyes—another distinguishing trait—and two red streaks running along its body right under its wings, both of which only furthered my suspicion.

The raven was darting around me, looking right at me curiously.  It couldn’t see me, I was certain, but it could sense my presence; that much was clear.  More evidence.  I hesitated, then floated towards it until the shroud encapsulated it, too, at which it gave a squawk of surprise and reeled back slightly.

“It’s okay.”  I held out a hoof as nonthreateningly as I could.  “I know.”

It cocked its head, stared at me, and—after an unmistakeable glance at my cutie mark—it disappeared in a flash of white-hot fire, and when the light faded, the raven was gone, and in its place was a smoky grey pegasus.  He had spiky, maroon hair so dark it was almost black, and the white silhouette of a raven sat on his flank, surrounded by tiny starlike runes and glowing softly in the aftermath of his metamorphosis.  Perhaps the most alarming part of his appearance was two bold, blood-red eyes that never seemed to blink.

“Hm.”  He rubbed his chin.  “Apollo?”

Blood rushed to my face, and for a moment my vision drifted out of focus.  “No, the Plea.  You’re...” I breathed in sharply.  “...not going to tell anyone, are you?”

He just looked at me.  “No.”

An awkward silence followed.  He didn’t seem to want to introduce himself—which was fine by me.  It meant I neither had to play the Silhouette charade nor lie about my name.

He did not seem surprised to see the phantom universe surrounding us or the other four looking up at us, far below.  But then, I guess when you can shapeshift into a raven, there’s not much that can really surprise you.  Or concern you.

I ignored—not without difficulty—the growing, crushing sensation of utter hollowness that was slowly eating my insides.  Not having eaten for a few hours wasn’t helping.  “What’s with all the crows?”

He gestured at the spire.  “There’s a dying dragon inside.  I’ve been trying to clear them out so she can die in peace, but...” He shrugged.  “It’s a dying dragon.”

The phrase restored my usual state of mind; the wearing hollowness faded, the surging blood receded, the wind around me remembered to breathe, and all that was left was the frigid focus of objectivity.  My home.

“Who is it?”  It couldn’t be Timid Thunder unless there was some odd gender disparities.

“Don’t know, haven’t seen her.  The crows say she’s—”  He paused for a moment, ear cocked.  “She’s crying and wailing in pain.  Trust me,” he added.  “Crows know death when they hear it.”

I strained my ears as hard I could, but for all my efforts I could not hear anything that sounded like a dragon on Tartarus’ doorstep.  “I don’t hear anything.”

“Are you a crow?”

“No, but—”

“There you go.”  He gestured at the murder.  “I said they can hear death, and that’s exactly what I meant.  They know the sound far better than I do,” he added with a slight tilt of his head.

I looked down at the waiting guards, then back up at the pegasus, whose red eyes were locked on me, and within them I caught a glimpse of something I’d seen only once before.  “Volcano?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”  I saw Julienne far below, waving something that sparkled silver in the sunlight.  “I should go.”

He shooed me off.  “Fly.”

I felt another burst of fire as I turned tail and flew, and I knew he was once again a raven.  My insides had yet to settle, but the more distance I put between myself and Raven—what else could I call him?—the calmer they felt.  Admittedly I’d suspected the same of Swan, but even with her name, she had shown no sign that she knew of Raven’s kind.

Until I landed next to the others, that was.  All eyes were on me, staring daggers, but it was the archer and her honey-golden eyes that glared the hardest, harbored the most suspicions.  She was twitching ever so slightly, and she was clearly fighting to keep her face impassive, but it was in her eyes.  Some mixture of surprise and anger, but what caught my interest was the smouldering embers of jealousy.  She did know.  She didn’t comment on it, but I knew she would at the first chance she got.

“I’ve been trying to talk that crow for ages,” Julienne said casually.  “He won’t talk to me.”

“Raven,” I corrected her.”  He’s a raven.  How’d you know he—?”

Julienne nodded at Eve, who stepped forward.  “I saw him a few times, never with other birds.  Thought he stood out a little, so I caught him flying over the river a while back,” she said.  “Tried talking to him, but he didn’t want to talk at first.  He...”  She hesitated.  “...he didn’t turn back into a pony until I introduced myself.”

Swan cleared her throat, and the odd pink tinge in Eve’s cheeks intensified.  “He wouldn’t talk to anyone else,” the archer said, still glaring at me accusingly.

I took a step back, but not because of her; Eve was sheepishly scratching at the ground with a hoof.  “It’s fine,” I told her.  “I’m not interested in him.”

At which she look mildly relieved, but Swan caught my eye and curtly nodded sideways; it was all she needed to do.

I wordlessly joined her and we walked some ways off in silence—again, a globule of the shroud peeling off to conceal us—and when we were out of earshot, she stepped in front of me and stared me down, eyes livid.  “You knew.”

“I know.”

She squinted at me, then at my cutie mark.  “I figured you weren’t actually Silhouette, but I didn’t want to ask if you didn’t want to tell.”

“I don’t.”

“But...”  She pointed at my flank.  “I know what that is now.  Or,” she amended, an odd tone I couldn’t place entering her voice.  “What it was supposed to be.”

I wanted to respond, I really did.  But it was how she said it that made me forget to; it took me a few stunned moments to recognize it, so unexpected was her reaction.

It was anger.

“How can you give that up?!”  She drew herself to her full height, golden steel glinting in the afternoon daylight, blue mohawk quaking with rage.  “Just abandon it like it was nothing?!  Do you have any idea how much ponies would give up for the chance you had?!  Do you have any idea how much I would give up?!?”

Her outrage battered against me, a fierce and discordant wind from a past I’d laid to rest long ago; I drew strength from my weathered core, and spoke as calmly as I could.  “I don’t, nor do I want to.  Just think, just for one second, about what could be so bad that it would make me give that chance up.  Think of what horrors I might’ve unleashed if I’d embraced that potential.”

“You don’t know.”  She advanced on me.  “You don’t know what it’s like being an earth pony.  The underbelly of pony society.  Mocked because we don’t have magic or wings.  Face rubbed in pebbles and dirt every day, being told we’re upholding society, but no, we’re just upholding unicorns and pegasi.”  She spat at my hooves.  “And you think you’re all high and mighty because you turned that chance down so you’d be on equal ground with us.”

I felt myself growing angry in spite of myself; Earth ponies had their capabilities, too, but they were subtle.  Very subtle, and perhaps not very well known.  But it wasn’t a secret I was at liberty to divulge.

“No.  I turned it down because the damage I did while taking that chance left scars that will never heal, and almost none of those scars are mine.  I’ll not cripple countless others so I can become something...more.”  I took a breath.  “Don’t think for one second I turned it down out of pity or some crap like that.

“And believe me, I know exactly how many ponies would give up their life to have the chance I did.  Because most of them actually do trying to get that chance.”

That did it.  Her anger waned visibly, nudged aside by confusion and puzzlement, perhaps helped along by the chilly gust I’d sent at her.  “They do?”

“Yes.”

“The—err—one I met said it was just a ritual.”

“It is.  There’s three parts to it.  Two of them like ending in death.”

“Oh.”  She stepped back, anger gone, though her chest was still heaving.  “I see.”

I took a breath, hesitant.  “Can...I ask how you know?  I take it you knew before meeting Raven.”

She turned away from me, looking up at the spires.  “Gravitas.  That’s his name.  And yes, I did know before.  I got my cutie mark for keeping wildlife off our ranch, growing up.”  She tapped her bow fondly.  “One night, full moon.  Spotted a snow-white fox with all the timber wolves.  I couldn’t peg him, and believe me—” Her chest puffed up proudly.  “That’s saying something.  But instead of going for the animals, he went for me, and pinned me down.”

She laughed, though the sound was marred by lingering anger.  “Next thing I knew, I was covered in snow, the fox was gone, and there was a pony standing over me.  Backed off once he was sure I wouldn’t shoot, introduced himself.  Apologized a lot, said the wolves had been running out of food and our ranch looked like a gold mine to them.  I asked if he could keep them out—he said he’d try.”

A gust of wind blew past us, unbidden, a little trail of dandelion seeds borne aloft on sun-warmed currents.

“Never saw the wolves again.”

She didn’t need to finish; I knew what happened after.  There was always something that happens after a story ends.  Always.

The way Swan had said his name told me everything.  It hadn’t been with heartthrob, but with reverence and a dash of tight familiarity.  So she’d seen him a few times after, and they connected as any close friends might, but there was no romance, no regular dependence on one another, and hardly any communication between them.  Yet still there was that friendship, rarely called upon but nevertheless a bond that could weather time’s weary advance, and perhaps even grow in spite of it.

“Well,” I said tentatively.  “I’d help you, but I’m a little preoccupied.  Have you asked him if he could help you, y’know...get started?”

She cocked her head.  “Of course, but every time I ask, he just goes silent and looks away.”  Her brows creased and anger flashed across her face again, but I beat her to the punch.  Her situation wasn’t one I was entirely new to, but it was still rare enough that the words tumbled from my mouth faster than my brain could process them.

“Have you ever thought that he wanted you safe more than he wanted you to ascend?  I’ve seen twelve ponies attempt the ritual.  Of those twelve, seven died during the first stage, and another four in the third.  It’s not safe.”

I knew long before I’d finished what her response would be.  “And the twelfth?”

Another cold and lonely wind swirled around us, an anomaly for an otherwise warm, sunny day; Swan shivered when I answered, and even I shuffled my wings.  “She hasn’t finished yet.”

I couldn’t keep the bite out of my voice, but she ignored it, eyes on the sky.  Time passed, maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, before she looked up again.  “Thank you,” she said.  “For everything.  And sorry for getting mad at you.”

“It’s okay.”  My smile faltered.  “And...thank you too.”

“For what?”

I lifted my head met her honey-colored eyes with mine, and from the way she looked back at me, I knew she hadn’t had a proper look before.  A smile stretched across my face; I always kept my mane over my eyes, but anyone who saw past the shadows would find a cold, slate grey hiding underneath.  “For not asking.”

“You’re welcome.”  She nodded towards the group, and we starting making our way back.

“Please,” I said.  “...don’t tell the others.”

She looked at me again.  “I won’t.  Not unless it becomes important to our mission—then I have to.  But...it won’t.”  She paused.  “You have beautiful eyes.”

I blinked and dropped my gaze.  As silly as it was to be proud of something you’ve always had, I was proud of my eyes.  It was a rare color to have—and of the few who had actually seen my eyes, none had ever complimented them.  I’d learned how to deal with a lot of things over the years, but compliments were not one of them.  They never were.

“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, and it was with massive relief that we dropped the topic there.  Our return had drawn the attention of the others, and no longer were they out of earshot.

“Let’s go,” Eve said curtly, and we fell back into formation.  It still felt strange to me, being in formation; usually I was on the other side.  I had to actually focus so that I drifted waywards now and then, so it didn’t look like I knew this kind of formation from the inside out.  Any structure—it any form—has its weaknesses, and it was my job to know them from the ground up.  This particular one was adopted to protect a single VIP.

“Gravitas said there was a dying dragon inside the spire,” I mentioned casually.  “Would you guys know anythi—”

Apparently they did, because Swan raised one of her hooves, gave Julienne and Eve a nod, then drew several circles in midair.  They turned towards the spire and started towards them, Deluge and I following in slight bewilderment.  If a dying dragon changed their tack this quickly, then it was because the rest of their unit was with said dying dragon.  But then...their mission had to involve dragons, which wasn’t surprising...except that they would have to be including those of the dead variety.

“You okay?”

I looked up to find Deluge staring at me, concerned.

“I’m fine.  I just thought—” I drew a sharp breath, and I felt my voice quake.  “I just thought I...wouldn’t have to work here.”

Again the cold wind blew between us, but a warm, feathery sensation followed; Deluge had rubbed her wing against mine.  I extended my wing and returned the gesture, feeling her feathers—her flight feathers—brush against mine.  The silent act of trust.  We were two of a kind, and now I knew we both knew it.

We housed the same tempered storm, and we both played host to dichotomic forces.  For her, it was an ongoing war between fact and faith—Mer was loyal, but he had scarpered all the same—as well as formality and practicality.  She was born and raised in the former and sought the latter, yet she was unable to shed all the trappings of her upbringing.

It was a little different for me, but only a little.  The wingtap proved she was as sharp as I was, proved she had figured out that I, too, spent most of my time torn between two fronts, and that I, too, bore irremovable marks from an upbringing I’d much rather forget.

I pushed it out of my mind as we neared the spire; it was absolutely colossal up close, with more than enough jagged surfaces to conceal a pony.  It appeared to be roughly the same size as the Calamus, but out here, in the open—there was no proper scale to compare.  It was definitely made of the same volcanic black glass as Whimsy’s new sword, but it was so scraped and worn down it had lost its luster, and instead was a matte black.

We circled around it and entered via a gaping hole near the base of the spire, which led into a darkened tunnel—well, a grand hall, for us, but a tunnel for a dragon—whose depths were hidden by shadows not far in, explaining why I hadn’t seen it earlier.

A whipcrack of thunder split the air and the darkness was swiftly dispelled as a bolt of lightning arced along the lines where the gently curved walls met, bathing the tunnel in light so white it glowed blue.  Even more interestingly, the lightning did not vanish, but stayed, persisted, crackling quietly behind what looked like glass.

Eve’s head snapped back as the lightning came alive; Swan braced for combat at the sound, and Julienne merely looked upwards curiously.  It was the unicorn that concerned me, though—her reaction was too violent, lasted too long, to be mere surprise.  But was it because she hadn’t known about the lightning conduit, or because she was supposed to be keeping us concealed and the lightning was surefire proof something knew we were here?

I knew there was more to it than just lightning and glass.  Sustained lightning was feat enough in itself, but glass alone would never work as a shield; that kind of heat would melt it under normal circumstances.  There was magic here, but it was more than just the work of a dragon.  The persistent lightning was just that, I was sure, but the containment conduit?  Not a chance.

That was a unicorn’s field.

We continued along the tunnel, hooves tapping quietly on the glass floor, the sound seemingly bouncing around endlessly inside the shroud.  Whether or not Eve had prior knowledge of conduit was irrelevant, for the time being; something knew we were here, and from the way Swan’s gaze darted about, and the way Julienne cringed at every slightest sound, they had figured out the same.  Even Deluge looked nervous, but she didn’t hesitate to poke me when she caught me preening my feathers.  I really needed to stop.

Yet as the air thinned and the tunnel’s curve grew steadily sharper, we heard strains of a heated discussion echoing down to us, and though it was bent and distorted by the reverberations, two other sounds were also discernible; the same clanking of metal and the same hooves-on-glass sounds as we made—so there were guards ahead.  But not necessarily their unit.  Probably, but not necessarily.

“It’s them,” Julienne whispered.

And indeed, whern we turned a final curve and the lightning conduit receded into the ceiling, there stood three armored Solar Guards—two pegasi, one unicorn—all of whom were standing in complete silence, right before the tunnel’s opening.  Two of them looked relieved to see their squadmates, and Eve even hoofbumped the other unicorn.  They—we—were clearly waiting for something to happen in the room above us, but now that Eve was here, they could talk without giving us away.

The third guard, a pegasus—who had at his side a hefty red hammer with gold insets—looked as stony-faced as I could imagine, but if anything he grew only stonier when he noticed Deluge.  I couldn’t entirely blame him; she was classy, sure, but what he’d done to her, the emotional Tartarus he put her through...it would be more than enough to break the mare’s composure.  And once that happened, Celestia knew what she would do.  That was the problem with class.  You never knew what was hiding underneath.

“About damn time,” said the other pegasus, tapping the butt of his spear on the ground, the Captain’s Crest glinting on his armor. He peered at the two of us not clad in armor, but he glanced sideways as Meridian stiffened, and he made the connection.  “I take it you’re Deluge?  Who’s the tagalong?”

“Traveling companion.”  The mare did not hesitate in responding, and even knowing she was lying, it was impossible for me to spot the tells.  “It’s a long journey, I couldn’t take it alone.”

“De—Deluge?” the other unicorn stuttered.  “What’re you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Meridian,” she said flatly.

“Speaking of which,” Julienne cut in; she’d been peeking over the tunnel’s edge, into the room.  “We haven’t all been properly introduced, and since we’re all waiting around doing nothing, why not fix that.  That—” She pointed at the captain.  “That’s the captain, Crimson Lotus.”

I shivered reactively before I could suppress the urge, but she took no notice, pointing at the other pegasus.

“That’s Meridian, Lieutenant Meridian Aubade.  And this—” She thumped the other unicorn affectionately.  “—this is Burnout.”

“I assume you’ve already met the dark one, the duck, and the hashslinger?” said Crimson.

“Uhm.”  Keeping my face straight around Crimson was a serious effort, and I wasn’t sure if it was working.  “Who, who, and who?”

Crimson sighed.  “Sorry, forgot.  It’s been a while since I’ve had to use their real names.  Let’s see...the duck is Swan, Swan Fletching, Julienne—just Julienne—is the hash slinger, and...bllaaaghh.  The dark one.  Don’t make me say it, please, please don’t make me say it.”

Eve’s muzzle curled into a smile, and against her dark coat, her teeth shone like stars in the dead of night.  “Event Horizon.”

I couldn’t make the call on whether or not Eve’s or Crimson’s full name sent more shivers down my spine, but at least the former’s black—no, void—magic made a little more sense.  Yet even being crushed into oblivion by a black hole was more attractive option than the prospect of having to deal with Crimson once the truth was laid bare.  The former would be over quickly.

“Well, now you’ve met us,” Julienne said with a weak smile.  “Caelum, the Watchers, in all our ragtag glory.”

Eve poked her head into the room, her scouting concealed by the shroud.  The room was—as far as I could tell—empty of both living beings and sounds, save for the wind’s soft breathing and the faintest whispers of rain.  “She’s late,” she said quietly.

Deluge had already picked up on it.  “If we’re waiting for somepony, why are we waiting in here?  What if they come up this way?”

“Hah,” Julienne snorted.  “She won’t.  She has a more...eccentric way of getting ar—.”

A violent slamming noise from above cut her off, followed by the insidiously quiet sound of cracking glass and thereafter the sound of hoofsteps.

A pony?  Up here?  I hadn’t heard the flapping of wings or any sort of airship.  If it was a pegasus, they could’ve just landed at full speed without breaking—it would explain the noise, but not the weight.  Whoever was walking around above us was heavy; pegasi were not, and it was a distinctly nonmagical sound.  So either they were here already—and I would’ve heard them had they crossed a skyway—or they had dropped out of the sky.

“There she is,” said the captain, a tad unnecessarily.

“Who is she?”  From the way she kept lurching forward, Deluge wanted to get into the room and have a look, but she had to go through the guards—and more importantly Meridian—to get there.  Given that we’d encountered an admittedly weird pony not too far from here, and that pony had also displayed prior knowledge of the guards and their mission—and a knack for some abilities not possessed by most earth ponies—I had one and only one guess as to who was trotting around above us.

The guards crept forward until at last Deluge and I emerged into the room, and as I’d expected, there was a brown-cloaked pony.  What I hadn’t expected was the familiar blue-scaled dragon the pony was standing next to; Canzonetta was curled up against the wall between the two gaping holes that led to either skyway, and unless I was mistaken, her scales were a little less blue than they’d been hours before.  She was breathing hard.

Dust glanced at us—directly at us—before turning back to the dragon, green magic curling around the her hooves and slithering towards the dragon, sinking beneath her scales.  Canzonetta’s breaths slowed and deepened, but she seemed no better for it.  Upon noticing the pony glancing back, she mumbled something in Draconic.

And as if it wasn’t outlandish enough already, Dust replied in kind.

The sounds of a pony speaking a dragon’s tongue, though it was unnatural and clearly not her native tongue, rebounded off the walls and tangled with its own reflections, turning into an aural web that was almost impossible to decipher.  It didn’t help that moments after speaking, the pony dashed to one of the openings and pulled something that—even knowing she was peculiar and fanastical and unlike any pony I’d ever heard of—I couldn’t help but call extraordinary.

The lingering echoes of her Draconic were swiftly drowned out by the sound of, apparently, a materializing massive, glowing, spectral, green bow, drawn from thin air.  A phantom construct decorated with runes that, like Riverside’s gateway, were not Draconic, nor anything else I recognized.  Dust wasted little time in loading herself into the bow, hind legs against the string; a shockwave rippled through the spire’s stone as she fired herself into the twilit sky.  She was outlined by the rising moon for the briefest of moments before she plummeted out of sight; the bow had already vanished.

“Ow,” I said reactively, but only Deluge heard me.  Five guards had rushed to Canzonetta’s side, where Dust’s green magic was still sinking into the dragon’s scales—with, unsettingly enough, no sound at all and no evidence that it was ever there.  Swan alone rushed instead to the opening Dust had...departed from, but she didn’t seem concerned with the mare’s escape.

“She killed her!”  Crimson exclaimed, trying in vain to stop the last few tendrils of Dust’s magic from melding into the dragon.  “She killed her and we were right there!  We should have done something!”

Meridian caught his captain’s eye and pointedly tapped his armor, face expressionless.

“It’s not our mission.”  Eve looked slightly disheartened, but her face was set.

“Oh.  Sorry,” said Crimson bitterly.  “I forgot we can’t save lives unless the ponies upstairs say it’s okay.”

Meridian tapped his head, extended a hoof, then sharply withdrew it as though he’d been burned, shaking his head.

“You know why we’re here,” said Eve dispassionately.  “And it’s not to interfere.”

“I—I just don’t get it sometimes...”

Burnout laid a hoof on him and said nothing.  What the hoof said, however, was far from nothing; the captain lifted his head and met her eyes, drawing strength from her silent empathy.

“Heh, yeah.” He chuckled reluctantly and stood back up.  “She knows better than us.  Now if only I knew why I was made Captain...”

I shot a glance at Meridian.  His stony expression that hadn’t budged since I’d first seen him faltered for the briefest of moments; if I’d blinked I would’ve missed it, but I wasn’t imagining it this time.  And it couldn’t be him just knowing something about Crimson’s promotion—from little what I knew of him, that alone wouldn’t be enough to make him uncomfortable.  He’d had a direct hoof in it.

“Canzonetta?” Crimson spoke quietly, carefully.  “Are you okay?”

One of the dragon’s eyes cracked open, and it became immediately apparent that she was deteriorating.  Her eye which hours before had been a blue as pure as the open sea, was shot faintly through with grey and yellow, and it seemed a constant struggle for her to keep it open.

“Well enough,” she croaked, her breath coming in ragged, uneven bursts.  But when the guards moved closer, she growled at them until they retreated, forcing herself into an upright position.  “No.  One last thing.  Then the passing.”

The guards looked at each other, suddenly nervous.  I couldn’t keep the confusion off my face.  Here she was, clearly on Old Thresh’s doorstep, possibly thanks to Dust, ready to journey through the Gates of Tartarus, but she was defiant, summoning her last vestiges of strength, and for what?  To talk to a few guards, a weathermare, and little old me?  Hardly.  There was something else going on here.

“Was it her?”  Burnout whispered.

“No.  Fault not gold and silver.  Time alone.”

“What is she talking about?” Deluge asked, as politely as she could manage, but both the guards and the dragon ignored her.

There was a distinct note of dread in Eve’s voice when she spoke.  “Does it have to be...one of us?”

“Yes.”

No.  Oh please, no.  In raw desperation I jammed my goggles on, but nothing changed, and that was the most horrific thing imaginable.  This was happening.  This was really happening.

Killing a dragon, one that could hold their own, fight back—that was one thing, even if the wails of a passing dragon were otherworldly and earsplitting and gutwrenching and terrible, made even worse by the lack of a corpse.  It was a sound that would shadow me to my grave.  But this...this was an execution.  A mercy killing, but an execution all the same.

There was a challenge in assassination.  Any worthwhile target knew they were one, and so they erected defenses.  Varied and extensive they were, each one an obstacle to overcome.  They had a chance to hide, to run, to defend themselves.  Canzonetta did not.

Deluge nudged me so hard I fell over.

“It’s not that,” she said sharply, earning the guards’ undivided attention.  “She wants—needs something else.”

I stared at her blankly.  She needed something else besides a mercifully painless death?  What, a banana?  What had to be one of us?

“I was kinda hoping...she’d be the one,” Julienne said lamely.

“Thought for sure she would be,” Swan added.

But the first whispers of a real answer came when Canzonetta caved in to another bout of coughs, and the first mistrals of death froze the water vapor surrounding her, causing a light snow to blanket her scaled form.  Some of the snow lingered in the air, however, defying gravity in favor of forming the glacial silhouette of...a bird.

Though it was nothing more than some airborne ice crystals, the mirage struck a chord within me, and despite my goggles’ lunar enchantment, the bird assumed a transparent, ethereal quality, glowing with an icy blue not so far from my coat.  I could pick out individual barbs on its feathers, each one in constant flux between perfect needle and jagged ice, as if the bird housed a devastating snowstorm within, and it was with the howling winds of winter that it went barreling through my head, baring its soul in a shower of frosted feathers and a feral shriek that reeked of ages past.

Sapphire.

This wasn’t my goggles, and I could tell that the projections weren’t real, that it was still only an admittedly precise cluster of snowflakes.  Whimsy had said there were a couple ways to project illusions, and this was without a doubt the more insidious of the two; this was magic at work inside my head, shards of ice driven into my mind like so many nails, and as the bird’s cry continued I could feel the centuries upon centuries worth of memories contained within, bogging me down with volatile emotions and vivid flashbacks that went careening past with dizzying speed, too fast to make anything out.  There was more to the memories, the recollections, the reflections than I’d ever experienced, more than I was capable of experiencing.

Dragons were acutely aware of the magical planes, almost lived in them, whereas even unicorns only flitted through them.  But I had visited those planes for longer than most, accessing potential unused for centuries, and I could feel that plane now, leaking into ours in a overwhelming tidal wave of magic.  It sounded like every animal’s cries combined, proud and quiet and fierce and playful.  They looked like every creature fused into one, horned and slimy and scaled and furry.  They smelled divine and putrid, fruity and biting, stinging and musty.  They felt jagged and glassen, rocky and sandy, cold and dry, wet and hot.  They tasted sour and sweet and bitter and salty.

This was magic in its purest form.

Raw magic went were it willed, acted on the merest of whims, and could just as easily grant cosmic powers beyond comprehension as it could torch beings alive, from the inside out.  I had seen it at work, seen it bless ponies with trascendent abilities.  But far more often had I seen it freeze ponies solid, bury them in magma, drown them in the oceans’ depths, or rip them apart with nothing but wind.  I’d even seen one torn apart by the void of the cosmos.

The bird let out another fierce shriek and it twisted, deformed, spiraled into a shining vortex that hesitated only briefly before bursting forth to form a blue gryphon, who had the same icy-needle feathers as well as vaguely crystalline scaled legs, fur that looked like frost, and a jagged, almost polygonal beak that cracked open to the same, shivering howls of winter once more.

Paradigm.

And the magic withdrew.

I was back in the spire, watching some sad snowflakes melt on their way to the floor.  Gone was the cold, the memories, but nevertheless a shiver ran through us all.  Evidence that the magical fit hadn’t afflicted only me.

But the guards knew already.  There was no confusion in their eyes; determination drained all personality and color from their faces, and they kept shooting furtive glances at one another, waiting for someone to step up.  It has to be one of us.

Paradigm.  Paradigm.

I rubbed my head, disparate facts floating around inside, no connections to tie them all together, yet...there had to be connections.  There was too much evidence to the contrary.  The Paradigm—the Sapphire Paradigm, at that, whatever that was—the military presence, Canzonetta’s splintered mind, her grandiose display of magic followed by her death, the rippling wall.  Then Deluge’s inevitable confrontation with Meridian, and my task of giving her—ideally them—resolution.

Coincidence that both events were happening simultaneously, and in the same area?  Unlikely.

Sapphire Paradigm.

Canzonetta, the gryphon, and the...ice phoenix?

Perhaps the magic that allowed elemental dragons could affect other sufficiently magical beings, as well.

But regardless, they were all connected, even if I didn’t know how yet.  Canzonetta’s impending death and the magical spilloff...I had witnessed a dragon’s death before, and it had involved some lingering flames, but there had been nothing like the magic we had just witnessed, no overwhelming surge of magic that washed over my mind.  She couldn’t be anything other than an Eyrian guardian, and the influx of memories were almost certainly a result of a waning grasp on her magic.

The guards shuffled nervously, still looking at each other, their expressions growing more and more flat.  Canzonetta’s breathing had slowed, stabilized; she was watching us struggle with ourselves, the moon reflected in both open eyes, her death defied until one of us stood up.  Until one of us...

...until one of us chose to become the next Sapphire Paradigm.

The phoenix, the gryphon.  Sapphire Paradigms from the past.  I saw it now.  The Paradigms were the Eyrian guardians, protectors of primal magic.  The magic they bore, a burden to accept, a role to fulfill; it kept the world running.  If Canzonetta died before another chose to take her place, the magic would roam, like it had mere minutes ago, tidal waves of memories and visions crashing into the cliffs of the mind until they were worn away, reduced to nothing.  The magic had left Canzonetta—a dragon—with a splintered mind and spirit.  Even dispersed, what the magic might do to ponies and lesser creatures...

Deluge began quaking next to me, shivering, trembling.  With every passing second the pressure to step up grew, and the guards appeared no more willing than they had been a few minutes ago.  There was no way I’d do it.  I’d screwed up too many times to carry that kind of responsibility, to take that kind of risk, and I realized perhaps too late that my decision was clear in my body language.  I wasn’t stiff like the guards, and I wasn’t trembling like Deluge.

There was no way she’d had the same revelation as me, but she knew something had to be done, and she knew that if the necessity of it was so great that it could stave off death, so great that Old Thresh stayed his chains.  The world would fail if no one stepped up.  The guards weren’t willing to do it, that much was clear.  They were all backing up slowly, unwilling to make a bigger sacrifice than they already had.  All but one.

Meridian alone was left standing, stance firm, wings flared, hooves crunching as they dug into the weathered stone, but his eyes...his eyes were quivering, uncertain.  Unwilling.  I was far from an expert on magic, but from the proceedings so far, it seemed the dragon’s successor had to be willing, or the magic would not take.  If it didn’t matter, then it would’ve chosen one of us on its own, and Canzonetta would not be lying there, watching us, waiting for someone to want to replace her.

But even so, Meridian began moving, slowly, walking towards Deluge with soft conviction.  Perhaps to say goodbye, or to apologize, or offer excuses.  It didn’t matter.  She was the one with the power to forgive—all he could do was ask and hope for the best.  His hoofsteps rang through the chamber like ringing bell tolls, but she did not turn.  She had eyes for Canzonetta alone, and in less than a minute Deluge had gone from quivering to quaking, her hooves almost rattling against the stone, her wings rustling like autumn leaves in the wind.

Deluge closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths.  When she opened them again, her eyes shone with new resolve, the blue sparkling like crystals, but she had grown rigid, far too rigid, and I noted that she only got tenser as Meridian drew nearer.

He reached out with a tender hoof to touch her, to see if she would be okay with him taking up Canzonetta’s mantle, but before he could even ask, the mare’s wings shot out and she wheeled about with a blast of wind that sent him careening backwards, tripping over his own hooves and skidding along the floor.  His armor gouged long furrows into the stone with a drawn-out screech that reaved holes in the atmosphere, shattering the thin-ice tension only to replace it with raw, unbridled anger.

“Don’t touch me,” Deluge snarled.  “You’ve survived without me for months.  You don’t need me to support you.”

He looked at her, silent, eyes pleading, apologetic.

“You think I can just forgive you?  After everything you put me through?”

She advanced on him, wings wide, the air around her plummeting several degrees as the anger and anxiety she’d been bottling for months began leaking through her composure, pegasus blood and instinct making her cold fury manifest.

“You could’ve been dead!  You could’ve fallen for another mare!  But you left, abandoned me without a trace!”

Meridian flinched with every accusation leveled against him, but he did not close his eyes, he did not back off, and he did not fight back.

“BUT NO, I GET A LETTER, SAYING YOU WENT ..A., AND I’M SCARED YOU’RE DEAD, BUT THEN I COME HERE JUST TO FIND YOU BACK WITH YOUR OLD GUARD AND—AND—”

She wheeled about to fire a piercing glare at Burnout, who shrank back, trying and failing to make herself look harmless and helpless.  Hard to do that when you’re wearing armor.

“IT’S HER, ISN’T IT?!”

Meridian shook his head, still quaking, trying to regain control of himself.  He was still on the floor, but Deluge’s anger was only growing, festering into a storm as only a pegasi’s fury could, and she started advancing on him again, vehemently, slowly, small cumulonimbus clouds roiling to life around her, forcing him to keep backing up until his armored flank hit the wall with a venomously quiet clang.

“No—!”

Burnout’s voice was pitifully weak, a leaf of defiance caught before Deluge’s torrential storm.  The rain mare turned on her, mane flying wildly, eyes furious, unfocused, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“DON’T YOU DARE LIE TO ME, YOU FILTHY—”

Most of her insults—and Burnout’s feeble protests—fell away as I shut her out, blood pumping, mind racing, but what little of her yelling that did make it through, did so with considerable volume.

“—HE LETS ME THINK WE’RE GOING TO GET MARRIED BUT HE’S OFF, OH NO BIGGIE I MISSED MY WEDDING—”

Meridian hadn’t moved, hadn’t raised a hoof to defend himself; Deluge was going to keep yelling, there was nothing I could do about that.

“—RUNNING AROUND BEHIND MY BACK AND DOING CELESTIA KNOWS WHAT—”

She had more experience than me, and in any case the less I was directly involved, the better.

“—IF YOU THINK THINK I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU TWO MORONS TOGETHER—”

The resolution would be much more profound, more stable if they found it on their own.

“—NO WAY IN TARTARUS YOU’RE NOT UP TO SOMETHING—”

Deluge was over Meridian now, spittle flying from her mouth and freezing solid mid-air, each little pellet drawn into a light vortex that had swirled to life around the mare.  Most of the guards looked like they understood, too, that if they intervened, it would weaken the conflict’s solution.  Crimson alone had started moving towards mare, spear at the ready, but the raging storm enveloping Deluge kept him at bay.

“—YOU COULD HAVE JUST HAD FLEET TELL ME BUT NOOOO, JUST HAD TO SCARPER—”

She drew a hoof back, as if to punch Meridian.

“—YOU—”

Her leg tensed, and she drew it back further.

“—SON—”

A surge of arctic winds howled to life as the tornado accelerated, spewing hail every which way.  Meridian raised a leg to shield himself.

"—OF—”

The guards were paralyzed, Crimson’s intervention stayed by the storm, but as the freezing winds washed over me and Deluge all but disappeared behind a wall of hail, I smelled rain.

“—A—”

I hurled myself into the storm, carried forth on thrashing winds and ignoring the hail battering my hide.  Meridian’s leg dropped.

“—BITCH!”

The crackle of crystallizing water filled the air as I breached the eye of the storm and seized her leg mid-swing, stopping the icicle a split-second before it disappeared into her fiancé.

“Don’t.”

It was all that I said, and it was all that was needed.  The storm withered instantly.  Fleeting insanity fled from her eyes as she looked down at her would-be murder weapon, and shock contorted her face as she realized what she’d almost done.

“I...”

She backed off, the icicle falling from her grasp to shatter against the ground, its shards joining the hundreds of others on the floor.  She backed off, twisting her ears, but she did not fold her wings, and when she turned to bolt, I snatched up her tail.  Momentum carried her legs out from under her and slammed her against the floor, face up.  I spat out her tail and walked over to her, slowly, calmly.  She was half-whimpering, half-sobbing; the guards looked utterly lost and confused, except for one.  Eve’s eyes had narrowed to slits, and she was not looking at Deluge.

“You think running will solve this?”  I did my best to not sound abrasive, but the rain mare winced every few words, as though each one was another physical blow.  “That’s exactly what he did, and look where it got you two.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Give him, at the very least, the chance to explain himself.”

Deluge’s whimpering dwindled to quiet sniffles.  “I...I just can’t stand it...”

I resisted the urge to grin at her choice of words; she was still lying on the ground.  “Maybe he couldn’t, either.  You both ran away—okay, you only tried—but you both did it for a reason.  We know yours.  What’s his?”  There was more than one side to any story.  Making a judgement call without knowing all of them was folly at its finest.

She struggled into a sitting position and looked at Meridian, curiously, like he were an creature behind bars, behind glass.  “I don’t know...and he can’t say...”

“Hm?”  I turned to look at Meridian, who had peeled himself off the wall but looked as helpless and pleading as ever.  Upon catching my eye he opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  He worked his jaw in silence for a few moments, then pointedly shut it again.  “Oh.”

He was mute.

Eve glanced at Crimson, who glanced at Canzonetta.  The dragon’s death was still on hold, imminent, merely delayed, but her eyes had grown clear again, and both of them were open.  She’d even pulled her head off the floor, if only slightly.  She caught Crimson’s eye and nodded.

“At ease,” the captain said.  Eve removed her helmet, as did Meridian; both reverted to their normal appearances; the former, a dark unicorn, the latter, a pale-orange pegasus with a white-red mane and hazel eyes.  Eve went to his side, angled so she could watch him and us, her expression dead.  When Meridian went into a series of gestures I couldn’t make head nor tails of, she spoke.  Curtly, and flatly.

“He was afraid.”

Meridian was not a pony most would call a coward.  Even for the short while I had observed him, he had not shown fear of much.  He had been shaking during Deluge’s yelling fest, but he had done no more.  He had not turned tail nor lashed out.

“Of what?” Deluge choked through her tears.

To which Meridian replied with another sequence of gestures, but Eve did not speak immediately this time, confusion flickering in her eyes.  She cocked her ears at him, but didn’t seem to get anything out of it.

“...I don’t know,” she said.  “And no I mean I don’t know, not him.  He knows, I don’t.”

Looking at him, watching the way he tried to communicate, the way he thought he should—augh—behave.  All of his gestures had some element of military gestures in them; raised hoof, circular motions.  Every one of them I’d seen soldiers use before.  Even the way he held himself was rigid, stiff; the result of years of conditioning and training.  When Deluge had physically confronted him, he had known what to do.  He had the instincts, the reactions—he was more than capable of defending himself.

He had simply chosen not to.

So he had known full well what leaving would do to Deluge.  And he felt guilty, felt he deserved whatever punishment she saw fit to give him.  Even now, when the one he’d chosen to spend his life with had almost ended him—and would’ve, without me—his expression was laced with grim resolution, the kind I’d expect of a pony moments before their execution.  The kind I’d seen ponies wear in the face of their imminent death.

“He knew,” I said sharply.  “He knew exactly what leaving would do to you.  Right?”

Meridian nodded.  Just once.

“So whatever his reasons were, they were at the very least as potent as his love for you.  Stop me if I’m wrong,” I added, looking at Meridian.  He gestured for me to continue.  “My guess is...”

I examined him closely, looking for minute details, the little tells that would give away his reason for leaving.  Unlike the others, he did not keep shifting so his armor would scratch itchy spots.  Apart from that, there was no other tells.  But that, too, was a tell.  The armor, protective steel for most, was a second skin for him.  Military life was his life.

Deluge poked me impatiently with a tear-stained hoof.  “I’m listening...”

The poke made me turn at look at her, at the way she handled herself.  Already she had reasserted herself, once again the composed mare, nevermore the unstable killer she might have been.  Her emotions were on a leash, and a tough one, at that.  It was how she was raised, and it was how she adapted to virtually any social situation.

And with a final bolt of realization, it all made sense.  I turned to Deluge.

“Your wedding.”  I bounced my gaze between them, watching.  “I assume you invited a good number of ponies?”

“Of course,” Deluge said, looking confused.  “But what’s this—”

Eve shushed her with a look and a hoof drawn across her mouth like a zipper.

“How many?” I asked.

“Uh.  Five dozen at least?  I can’t remember.”

I grinned in triumph.

“What is it?” she demanded, a flare of emotion surfacing.

“Meridian.”  I turned to him.  “You’ve been a soldier for most of your life, yes?”

“Enlisted as soon as he was old enough,” Eve said.  “He went with me.”

“He what?”

“He went with me,” she repeated, looking confused.  “We enlisted together.”

I looked at them both, sizing them up, and tried casting them in a new light.  “You’re twins.”

“You didn’t know?”  She scratched her head in bewilderment .  “I thought—”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Deluge interrupted curtly.

“Right,” I said.  “So he’s been a soldier for most of his life.  Just how much do you think he knows about civilian life?”

“Not much,” said Deluge, and Meridian nodded.  “But he wanted to stick it out until he could at least tolerate it.  And he did fine. It was never that big an issue.”

“Was it?”

“No, it was’n—” her face fell as she realized what I meant, and she shot a glance at Meridian, whose head looked ready to detach from all the nodding.  “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“...Oh.  I never thought about it.  I thought—”

“—he could stick it out, stand through an entire wedding, for you, out of love?  Love is no more or less potent than fear.  I’m guessing he tolerated it for a while, but with the wedding so close...it would only amplify that fear.  You said yourself he’s not very good at standing on ceremony.”

Meridian looked like a cross between a bobblehead during an earthquake and someone praising Celestia.  I couldn’t help but smirk, partly at him, partly because I, a nobody here, had beaten both Deluge and Eve—his would-be spouse and twin—to figuring out what his deal was.  Deluge had never thought about it.  She wouldn’t’ve.  Being sociable was like wearing comfortable pajamas to her.  Eve probably hadn’t cared enough.

“He was afraid of the wedding.  Of what he would have to do, of what would be expected of him.  There’s no training that can really prepare you for something like that.  How do you talk to ponies when you can’t talk?  What do you do?”

She looked helpless, but I plowed on.  She had to understand, and understand fully, or their relationship would never heal.

“On top of that, think about how he would’ve felt, trying to live a civilian life.  Buying groceries, cleaning house, taking out the trash.  Menial work.  After defending Equestria with his own hammer and hoof?  And—”

I stopped to look at Meridian, whose hoof would’ve probably fallen off if he’d gestured for me to continue any more enthusiastically.

“—And it’s not just how the mighty have fallen.  He knows what he’s good at.  He would’ve felt...”

I remembered how I felt when Whimsy insisted on detours to the library.  Hours upon hours of sitting around, doing nothing as she absorbed—literally—tome after tome after tome of knowledge.

“...Useless.

“So he ran to the one place where he was truly comfortable,” I said.  “The one place where he didn’t have to be afraid all the time.”

Meridian tapped his armor and stood tall.

“The military,” Deluge breathed.  “I’m...”

She fell limply to the ground and began sobbing quietly.  Meridian trotted over to me and grabbed at my hoof.  I pulled it back on reaction, but he tried again, slowly, without breaking eye contact.  After a moment, I held it out, wary of tricks, but all he did was shake it so vigorously I had to snap open my wings to stablize myself.  Deluge didn’t react; she was either too locked down by the revelation, or she understood that Meridian was thanking me, not wooing me.  Which was fortunate, because if he had been, he’d be on the ground and I’d’ve been long since lost to the clouds.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

He let go of me and turned, slowly, cautiously, as though he trod upon a particularly volatile cumulonimbus, a breath away from bathing the lands below with sheets of rain and a cannonade of lightning.  A few seconds, a nervous gulp, and an eternity later, he came face-to-face with his one true love, and his one greatest fear.

After several moments of muted tears, Deluge pulled her face out of her hooves and regarded her fiancé with eyes that were swollen, red, but dry.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered.  “I didn’t think—I thought you were okay with—I never thought—I mean—“

He took a step forward, silent, unwavering, still as though one wrong step could shatter the pane of ice keeping him from a frigid death, but when she did not protest, he took another step, and then another, until he was able to wrap his hooves around her and hug her.  Her dry sobs rocked both of them, but in his embrace, they stuttered, slowed, and eventually stopped.

“...I’m sorry,“ she murmured, and he nuzzled her in response, and even to my jaded eyes the apology and implied I love you was clear.  And for the first time I saw him as the chivalrous, stoic, shining-armored, soft-hearted, right-out-of-a-fairy-tale stallion that she’d fallen in love with, and her as the composed,  strong-willed, free-spirited mare that he’d fallen in love with.  A mare to guide; a stallion to abide.

I cleared my throat loudly, and they both looked at me.

“Forgetting something?”

They looked at each other, still in each others’ hooves, confused.  I tilted my head towards the prone blue dragon still lying against the wall.  Canzonetta had been following the proceedings attentively, with little to no signs of her deterioration apart from her scales still slowly losing their luster.  With the group’s attention on her once more, she stood up and extended a single claw.  Beckoning.

Meridian broke off at once and started towards Canzonetta.  His eyes were set and his stride firm, and he lifted his hoof to place it in the dragon’s claw.  He never completed the gesture.

The lieutenant’s mouth opened in a soundless yelp as he was yanked backwards, landing on his rump, and where he meant to place his hoof, there lay a blue one instead, its fur still damp with tears.  Meridian looked up, agape, and soundlessly met a hovering Deluge’s blue eyes.

“You’ve sacrificed enough,“ she whispered.  “It’s my turn.“

He wanted to protest.  His wings twitched, his hooves jittered, and he kept half-jumping up as if to pull her down, but there was a steely glint in the mare’s eyes, a tiny little spark that could shine alongside the brightest of stars, and with that sign, that single tell, I knew she truly understood.

She was taking up the mantle so no one else had to.  The same way Meridian defended Equestria so that no one—except those who chose otherwise—had to.  The noblest of sacrifices; the sacrifice of self.

“One with crystal eyes will do,” Canzonetta murmured to Meridian.  “The silent need not accept.”

She bent her neck until she was face-to-face with Deluge.  The mare didn’t blink, flinch, or even move, and it clicked into place.  Meridian had wanted to take the dragon’s mantle, but he did not want the mantle—he wanted the sacrifice.  Deluge wanted the sacrifice and the mantle.  It was so obvious.

“Scale?” Canzonetta inquired.

Deluge obligingly brought her scale out without so much as a glance at her saddlebags.  Next to the dragon’s paling colors, the scale was a beacon of her former glory, streaked with the rippling blue that I’d first seen her with, rife with magic, breathing, alive.  A tingle ran down my side as the dragon took it, inspected it, flipped it over, and returned it to Deluge’s outstretched hoof.  Shrieks and screeches, shadows of a sound I’d hoped I’d never hear again, began creeping through the chamber, unbudgeable by the wind, screams that wandered across the void between our reality and magic’s, and persisted even when the dragon’s muzzle was closed.

Deluge heard it, too, and she knew what it was, even if she’d never heard it before.  “How will I know—?”

She was silenced as Canzonetta brushed the side of a talon across her mouth.

“One with crystal eyes,” she repeated, and for the second time I saw her eyes clear up, focused, and when she spoke next, it was in the same voice she’d used when she left Riverside.  The clear, focused one that didn’t betray so much as a whisper of her splintered mind, only this time it was multilayered, a entire chorus of voices contained in one.  “Listen.”

Though she spoke softly, the two syllables rang through the chamber, mingling with their own reflections, resonating with the walls and floor, so they, too, quivered and quaked with the voice of raw magic.

Listen.

And Canzonetta started to fade.

Little bits and pieces of her, parts whose color was already lost, lost their substance—melting into glowing blue fog as though being dissolved by invisible acid.  The rest of her physical self rapidly followed suit, leaving behind nothing but fog and an odd-looking blue flame, with two pulsing red spots, like dying coals.  Within seconds her body was gone completely, nothing more than wisps in the wind, the blue flame wavering in the wind.  The otherworldly shrieks and screeches vanished along with her, and in their place I heard the woven whispers of the dead, leaking souls as Old Thresh led her into the afterlife.

But the fog—the fog stayed.  Her soul was drawn into the afterlife, but the fog was unmoved—until the ambient whispers ceased, and they began moving.  Towards Deluge.  Towards the scale in her grasp.

The scale breathed in, consuming the fog, its glow intensifying, until Deluge was holding a minature, blue version of the sun, little fiery flares arcing outwards then curling back into it.  An odd thrumming started as the scale, too, began to vanish, but this time, there was no shrieks, no howls traversing the void between dimensions, and even as we watched, Deluge’s head snapped back, mouth silently agape, her eyes beginning to glow.  White blotted out blue, little tongues of a sky-blue fire rising from her now-obscured eyes, but the tongues were swiftly pulled back.  She shut her eyes.

The fog was gone.  The scale was fading.  The blue ball of fire that was likely her soul had been taken by Old Thresh.  There was nothing left, no evidence that the dragon had ever existed—except for a mare with closed eyes and fur that emitted a faint blue light.

Minutes ticked by as Deluge hung suspended in midair, the incorporeal scale hovering before her, wings spread but motionless, lost in some odd reverie, still emanating that strange thrumming.  The air grew still, unable to be coaxed into wind, but it did not turn cold, did not yield to her pegasus blood nor to any loose magic of the Paradigm.  It was working.  The magic of an Eyrian guardian had accepted its new host, had agreed not to stray to other creatures.

And when Deluge finally opened her eyes, we knew it had worked.  Her eyes were as blue as ever, but upon closer inspection there was a little lattice of light moving through them, rippling and wavering like sunlight at the bottom of a pool.

“Damn,” she said, and though her voice hadn’t changed a bit, I almost jumped at the sound of something I could actually understand.  “I was not expecting that.”

Meridian inched forwards, expression flickering between confusion, concern, and curiosity, but with just two words, Deluge took out two of those, leaving him just curious.

“I’m fine.  I—I just wasn’t expecting to hear her again.”  She plucked the scale out of the air.  “Or Vadose.  Or Haze.  Oh, sorry,” she said, catching our confused expressions.  “The gryphon and the phoenix.  I heard them both and more.”

The dragon’s lingering magic hadn’t so much as touched the rest of us, but I couldn’t help a shiver of apprehension; the magic had broken Canzonetta, left her mind in pieces.  Just what would it do to Deluge?

She looked me straight in the eye, and with no prompting whatsoever, she answered my unspoken question.

“I’m fine,” she said.  “Canzonetta wasn’t broken because of Eyrian magic—because she was a Paradigm, I mean.  She i—was the last water dragon, and the last Eastern dragon.  It was just...stress.  And isolation.”  She alighted on the ground, still holding the blue scale.  “Here.”

She pulled a globule of water from the air—a pegasus skill, I noted, not a gift of her new mantle—and let it trickle onto the scale.  What it sounded like, however, was nothing like dripping water.

“Vigilance,” the scale said, in the rough, grating tones of a gryphon.  “You have to stay aware of everything.  If you fall behind...just don’t.  Don’t fall behind.  You know exactly what you accepted, and I know you can rise to the challenge.  But...don’t forget, you need time for yourself, too.  You can’t serve others if you don’t take care of yourself.  Take my advice,” the voice said as it petered off weakly, as though its owner was departing from his world.  “Have a little fun now and then.”

The voice faded as the last few drops of water slid off the scale.

“What—” Crimson began.

“It’s called an echo,” she explained.  “Memories etched in a dragon’s scale, awoken by their element.  This one has everything Canzonetta...wanted to remember.  It’s...” She turned it over.  “...I think it has visions, too, but she...either she never knew how to invoke them...”

“...or she didn’t want to remember how,” I finished.  The rest broke into chatter, but it fell into indistinct noise.  Canzonetta was gone, just like that.  No murder, no touching last words.  Plenty of screaming, but from her unbound magic, not from her.  A silent passing.

I was no stranger to death, but it was one of perhaps two times I watched someone go without the slightest protest.  Old Thresh went out of his way to make the passing as painless as he could, but then, he was only the ferry, not whatever was actually killing them, which was as free to cause as much pain as it felt like.

Yet Canzonetta’s death...it was not painful.  She hadn’t roared, screeched, or even whimpered.  The voices we’d heard were the voices of her magic, leaking, breaking free of bonds only to fall into more.  They were more chaotic noise than voices, but every now and then there was a sound that vaguely resembled Equestrian, and if I listened closely, there were repeat patterns, certain recurring arrangements of sounds that I could only guess were an actual language.

The last time I heard those voices, they hadn’t been nearly as loud as they’d been here, with Canzonetta’s passing.  Here they’d been overwhelming, but there was a focus, something else I could concentrate on.  A blue pegasus, not too unlike myself, transcending the limits that bound so many, but at considerable cost.

What would she do now?

Her role—I had to assume—involved a ridiculous amount of traveling.  Would Meridian go, too?  Would he be allowed to go?  Last I checked, guards couldn’t just go on extended vacations whenever they felt like it.  If he even wanted to—being in the military was most of what he knew.

I looked forlornly at the spot where Canzonetta had been only moments ago.  Even in the short time I’d known her, there was something about the dragon that marked her as different.  Not the Paradigm thing, not even her splintered mind.  What had she been like before both of those?  Just what did she want to forget?

Deluge tried to shove me over again, but I was ready this time; I widened my stance, and she ended up just shoving herself backwards.  The guards started laughing, though their expressions still held the grim acceptance that Canzonetta’d left in her absence.

“Chin up,” she said.  “It was her time.”

“She might’ve stuck around if none of us had accepted,” grumbled Crimson.  “But nooo, here you are, gotta be all noble and—” He caught the horrified expression on Burnout’s face.  “I’m just kidding, geeze.  But we can all agree May killed her, right?  Why else would she run?”

He looked around to find his squad just staring at him.

“I dunno,” Burnout said quietly.  “She probably had other stuff to do.  You know her.”

Meridian caught his captain’s attention and poked his captain’s armor, right below the Captain’s Crest, where there was—I hadn’t noticed before—a tiny little pin.  A telescope.

“I know, I know,” Crimson said wearily, slumping.  “We can’t interfere.”

He looked dejected, disheartened by his inability to take action, but when he looked up again, Meridian stood before him, and he was holding out another pin.  A red-fire phoenix, wings spread majestically, with a set of keys dangling from its claws.  The mark of the Warden.

“I—” Crimson took it wonderously, gingerly, as though the slightest twitch would snap it in half.  “What?  How did you...?”  He worked his jaw soundlessly for several more moments.

“Princess Celestia knew you wanted to be a Warden,” Eve said dispassionately.  “But she knew you weren’t ready.  You needed to learn what you sacrifice by working alone, instead of with a group, where you have advantages and where you’re vulnerable.  And more importantly...” The ghost of a smile curled her mouth.  “...you needed to slow down.”

The captain—Warden—fixed the gleaming pin to his chest, just above the telescope.  “But why does...?”

Eve’s smile just grew wider.  “You know Princess Celestia can’t present it to you, out here,” she said.  “One of us had to, when we knew you were ready.  You were wondering why you were made captain when Mer’ was the universal favorite?”

Crimson nodded silently.  Meridian had sheepishly backed off, and what little of his face I saw had turned bright red.  I felt the ponderous progress of an impending resolution.  An old conflict, of character, of self, was facing its end, and I suddenly felt elated, giddy.

“He knew you wanted to be a Warden,” Eve said flatly.  “He knew you weren’t ready.  He requested that Daybreak promote you instead, so you could learn what you needed to, in order to get what you wanted.  Daybreak agreed, on one condition.  He asked Meridian to work for you as a mediator for your temper.  A secondary captain, to step in when things went too far.”

Meridian held out his hoof, gaze averted.

“He only ever had to remind you,” Eve finished.  “Never had to intervene.”

“I—you—”  Crimson tugged the Captain’s Crest from his armor, eyes on his underling captain.  “You—I mean—”

“That’s his way of saying thank you,” said Burnout.

“...Thank you.”  Crimson held the Crest out.  “I guess you get this now.  Congratulations.”

Meridian attached the Crest to his armor and saluted his still-superior officer.  Congratulations to you, too.

At first it’d just been Deluge and Meridian.  Okay, fine.  Enter Canzonetta, stage left—damn it, Whimsy—with all her weird Paradigm shenanigans.  And now Crimson and Meridian?  So many issues, problems, conflicts.  And all of them resolved—mostly because of me, because of one thing I did.  I helped Deluge understand.  That was it.  Those tiny little observations and inferences I made about the two of them, drawn to a logical conclusion.

And with that one fell swoop, I’d healed their relationship, given Canzonetta peace in the form of a replacement for her, turned Deluge from a weatherpony into an Eyrian guardian that held the world together—and now I’d gotten Crimson promoted to Warden and Meridian promoted to a position he apparently should—ugh—have had a long time ago.

Wind always goes beyond the horizon.

The Calamus, whatever it was, knew exactly what it was doing, that much was certain.

“And before you accuse me of anything, he told me,” Eve interjected.  “So don’t go all gung-ho on me for sticking my nose in his business.”

The newly-appointed captain turned to Swan, who oddly looked bored by the proceedings, and even faked a yawn before speaking.  “Are we done now?  We still have a job to do.”

“Where’d she go, anyways?” said Julienne.  “She could be anywhere by now.”

Eve closed her eyes, her void magic obscuring her horn.  “No.  She’s still close, just in the—”

The rest of her words disappeared as she threw the shroud over the guards, leaving Deluge and I standing outside of an invisible bubble that hid the guards from view.  I pulled my goggles down, and the guards became visible again, but I couldn’t hear them.

“HELLOOOO,” I yelled, but they didn’t react.  So they couldn’t hear us, either.  Perfect.  “How do you feel?”

“Weird,” Deluge said flatly, turning to look at me.  Her eyes were still rippling with distorted light, and for a moment they glowed pure white.  “Everything looks...different.  Just...different.”

“Hm.”

“I know I have work to do,” she continued.  “But before I go running off, two things.  First, thank you.”  She started forward, but slowly, and when she was sure I wouldn’t react, she hugged me.  Quickly.  “I don’t know what would’ve happened without you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay,” she admitted.  “I don’t want to think about it.  But I’m glad it didn’t.  And second, I think there’s something we have to do...”

As she said it, I felt a familiar rising sensation inside me, though my wings were still folded, so it came as no big surprise when the ceiling above us yielded to the night sky, its stars already curling into vaguely familiar patterns, vortices and spirals and maelstroms and sworls.  My gut already knew what was happening even if my head didn’t, but the growing sensation of weightlessness ground to a screeching halt when a unicorn materialized behind us.

“You don’t think I can just let you run off, do you, Zephyr?”

We turned in unison to find Eve in all her armored glory.  She had eyes only for me, and they did not look happy.  But they didn’t look determined or threatening, either.  They just looked...dead.  Maybe it was just her.  Or me.

“I have to mindwipe you both,” she said, still in her low, detached voice.  “You might not know exactly what our mission is, but you know too many details.  And I have to arrest you, Zephyr, for about a dozen counts or so of premeditated murder.  I have no choice.”

I tensed, feeling my bands crackle with latent power, and beside me, Deluge stiffened, swirls of mist curling around her hooves, her eyes faintly glowing white.  But the glow of Eve’s horn did not increase.

“But,” she said, and for once I heard a touch of compassion enter her voice.  “You both know that’s a lie.  If, say, a high-profile assassin and a newly-appointed Paradigm didn’t want to be mindwiped, there’s not a whole lot I can do to detain them if, y’know, I don’t want to die.  Basic combat training isn’t going to trump either one of those, let alone both.  So there’s that, for starters.”

Deluge relaxed, but I couldn’t.  Not yet.

“Then there’s the problem of where I’d keep you even if you went quietly.  You can’t stay with us, I can’t—won’t—kill you, I can’t keep you in stasis, and I can’t escort you—or teleport you—back to prison.  Plus, our commanding officers had to send out M.I.A. letters to our families.  We couldn’t leave any trails once this mission started.  But...if you guys refuse, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.  Or we can do.  I imagine you have some new skills you’re just dying to try out,” she said to Deluge, but she got no response.

I shook my head.  “I’d prefer it not come to that.  Or mindwiping.”  I’d never heard the term before, but given that Eve’s talent was hiding things—particularly tracks and trails, regardless of form—I only had one guess as to what it meant.

“I have to agree,” said Deluge with a small smile.  “But I think I can speak for us both when I say, we won’t tell a soul.  I...owe you that much,” she added quietly.

“It’s not for me,” said Eve, just as quietly.  “It’s for the world.”

She turned to re-enter her shroud, but she stopped short, and looked back.

“Both of you.  They haven’t recognized you.  They don’t know that I know.  If you run into us again...if they find out I didn’t mindwipe you...”

She looked at her greaves.

“Please don’t let them find out.”

Deluge saluted.  “Yes, ma’am.”

Eve’s shift in tone was startling, to say the least, and I found myself suddenly filled with disgusting amounts of empathy.   Whether she wanted to or not, whether she liked it or not, she was covering for us.  If we didn’t cover her in return, who knew what would happen, what the others would do.  To her, or to us.

So I pulled myself together and deliberately used three words instead of two.

“I will not.”

“Thank you,” she said, briefly relieved.  “And goodbye.”

Without giving us a chance to respond, she vanished in a flash of black light.  And with her departure, the rising sensation returned, growing, building, lifting us both off the ground, out of the spire, out of this realm.  I vaguely heard Deluge’s voice; it was soft, but laced with the magical chorus I’d heard only minutes ago.

“Here we go...”

And she sang.

“You fly wiiith the loongest wind to nowhere...”

[A1.7] You Fall Down to Earth and You're Just Left There

You Fall Down to Earth and You’re Just Left There

I was back inside the Calamus again.  After Deluge had sang that one line—and damn, that mare could sing—the rising sensation had escalated to the exact same feeling I’d had during the Calamus’ dance.  The heady elation, the weightlessness, the levitation, the whole nine yards.  But that time, whereever it was I had ended up, I’d been alone.

“Deluge,” I said.  “Meet my dad.”

She looked at the spark hovering before me.  “Sir, I would shake your hoof, but...”

“It’s fine,” he chuckled, and he moved towards the spark in front of Deluge.  “And who might this be?”

“Zephyr, err...”

“Blue.”

She tried again.  “Zephyr, Blue, meet my mother, Flaire.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintances,” Flaire said.  “And happy I could bring some color to your blue worlds.”

We all shared a laugh at that.  Blue did seem to be a regular color.  Maybe something to do with how...ambiguous it can be.  Blue, like the ocean?  Blue, like the sky?  Blue, as in depressed?  Blue, as in royal blue?  Blue, like ice?  I couldn’t think of any other color that was so...versatile.

“My husband couldn’t make it, I’m afraid,” Flaire continued.  “But thank you, Zephyr, for helping Crys understand.”

“Crys?”

“I told you, I changed my name,” said Deluge.  “Remember what...remember what Canzonetta called me?”

I did remember.  “Heh.  I can see why you changed your name, if you’re like me.  That’s...pretentious.”

She laughed.  “Yes.  Yes it was.”

“I can’t think of you as anything other than Deluge anyways,” I added.

“Good.”

I realized something.  “Deluge, is your m—Flaire, are you—?”

Deluge looked suddenly horrified.  “No, no, she’s not.  I’m not sure why she’s here, but...I guess you don’t have to be dead to be here, huh?”

I relaxed.  “I guess not.  Makes me wonder what you do have to be, though.”

“So,” said Dad to me.  “You did it again.  Resolution for another.  Quite a few anothers, actually.”

“It’s nothing new.  Except for the romance part.  I can do without that.”  I paused.  “And you’re welcome...Flaire.”

Her little star flickered briefly.

“Crys,” said Flaire.  “You understand now.  What drives Meridian, what he’s afraid of, where he’s truly comfortable.  You know he has to step outside of those boundaries now and then, but so do you.  And now you have.”  Her star moved to brush against her daughter’s cheek, and like Dad had done to me, Flaire’s touch siphoned all of Deluge’s stress away.  Her legs relaxed, she let her wings hang freely, and her hardened eyebrows softened.

“I’m proud of you,” Flaire whispered.  “And even if he’ll never admit it, your father is, too.”

A single tear rolled down Deluge’s cheek, rolling over her coat, sliding past her mother’s star, dropping off her chin only to fall into the abyss of light below.

“Thank you,” murmured Deluge, hugging Flaire’s star.  “Thank you all.  For everything.”

And when her tear touched the bottom, the magical sphere exploded into white ribbons to the tune of shredding paper, leaving behind nothing but a hollow, silent, endless black.  Well, that, a daughter, her deceased father, the end of one story, and the very beginnings of another.

End of Arc 1

— « § » —

[Prelude 2] Come, My White Demon

Prelude 2

— « § » —

Come, My White Demon

— « § » —

Master Table of Contents

Changelog

[P2.1] I'll Take You Away

I’ll Take You Away

I looked around at the inside of the Calamus, blackness on all sides.  It didn’t feel any different from its lighter cousin, but it gave the miniature star hovering before me a nice backdrop.  And, unless there were black things also hiding in the shadow, we were alone...except for a dull silver light coming from somewhere above us.  Moonlight?

“Where are we now?”

“Same place,” Dad said.  “You’ll find out eventually, but not from me.  Someone else you know knows this place inside out.”

“Who?”

“You’ll find out whenever they decide to tell you.”

I let it drop.  Dad wasn’t known for his decisiveness, but when he made a decision, he stuck to it.  If he wasn’t going to tell me, then he wasn’t going to tell me.

“I take I’m not done yet.”

“Naturally.”

“Whimsy still okay?”

He flickered, flashing orange for just a moment.

“She is alive, unharmed, and as spirited as ever,” he said, and I knew if I could see his face he’d be grinning.  “But she has other things to do, for now, as do you.  Don’t worry, this one is simple.  All you have to do is meet somepony.”

“Who is it?”

“Somepony you’ve already met, but don’t know.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember.  “Hm.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t do it.  I know you can.”

I stared at his star.  “Why wouldn’t I be able to...?  It’s just one pony, right?”

“Aye, but she’s a precocious little bugger.  You’ve already got your hooves full with just one of those, don’t you think?”

“Dad!”

“What?  It’s true.”

I dropped my wings.  “I know.  I swear, sometimes she won’t do anything unless she knows it’ll drive me up a wall.”

He laughed.  “That’s my girl.”

“So...”

I wasn’t sure how to express my skepticism.  After everything that’d happened over the past week or so, now I just have to meet somepony?  There had to be a catch.  But I ignored it, for the time being.  Dad never did anything without a proper reason to.  If he wasn’t telling me, I could be sure there was a good reason not to.

But regardless, my skepticism mauled whatever sane thing I was thinking of saying into something horrific that I regretted saying before it even left my mouth.  “...how’s...how’s Holly?”

There was a long pause.  I imagined Dad just staring at me with his brilliantly blue eyes.

“She’s fine,” he said evenly.  “Just...waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you to forgive yourself.”

I twitched.  “You know I can’t do that.”

“She knows you can.”

“Why does she care, anyways?”

Another long pause.

“Watching you cripple yourself is killing her.  She cried every time Canzonetta called you the ‘one with broken wings’, you know.”

“...you can watch me?”

“Nothing can hide from the stars.”  He paused, and for moment I could see the light from him brighten, beams all the whiter against the surrounding black void.  Here, without the other stars, it was easy to see his starlight’s electric-blue tinge.  “You’ve gotten faster.”

I flapped.  “That’s what the wind does.”

He paused again, and for some reason I imagined a smile flickering across his face.

“Lightning’s always been faster.”

“I know, but—”

“She only wanted you to be safe.”

“I know, but—”

“—you were curious, awestruck, mesmerized, inquisitive, jealous.”  He chuckled.  “You don’t have to tell me, Zeph.  I know you.  But whatever her concerns were, you’re still here, right?”

“...Yeah.”

There was a long moment of uneventful silence.

“You should get going.”

“There’s a lot of stuff that should happen.”

“Stop that,” he said.  “Just because it indicates an ideal scenario doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“No, but it does mean that the ideal scenario either didn’t or probably won’t happen.”

“It’s not wrong to hope, you know...”

“I know I’m not in a position nor profession where I can get away with hope.”

“You’re hoping this whole Calamus thing will lead you to Lucifa, aren’t you?”

“That’s—that’s different.”

“How so?”

“I have no choice,” I said though I knew it wasn't true. It never was.

“You always have a choice.  You chose to accept his offer.  You could have chosen to walk away.”

“Not if I wanted Whimsy to be safe,” I argued.  “She’ll never be safe as long as she’s with me, but you know I can’t just entrust her to anyone.  Not after—”

“Calm down.  I understand.  You did what you had to do.”

“I’m waiting for the day where I do what I want to do.”

“Or night.”

I had to smile at that.  “Yeah.  It is me.  It’ll definitely be a night.”  I paused.  “And it’ll probably involve lightning.”

He fell silent, and so did I.  I had to leave and meet this pony eventually, but...

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“...I love you.”

He brushed against me once more, and again I felt all my stress and worries, all my doubts and reservations fly away like dust in the wind.  All of them except one.

“Dad?”

“Mm?”

“Why me?”

He flickered in an imaginary wind.  “Because you keep asking a question that you know has no answer.”

“What?”

“You’ve asked it so many times,” he said softly.  “But always of yourself, never of others.”

A haze entered my mind, the question coalescing out of it like some beast emerging from smoke.  A creature that had shadowed me since my first, a monster that defied definition...

“What happens after the end?”

He shone brighter.  “That’s my girl.  You see...you always call it the end instead of death.  Obviously, they are not the same.”

“I didn’t think they were,” I said quietly.

“Exactly.  You have seen enough death to know that.  Now, are you ready to continue?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

And he moved towards me.  I watched his white-blue star flicker and pulse and sink below my coat, bringing with it the relaxation of a deep breath of mountain air, fresh, clean, sharp, piercing further and further into me until it reached my heart, letting cold strands of wind waver and thread their way from there to every part of me, down to every last strand of hair.  And from there, relaxation evolved into elation, and I felt myself for the third time being slowly pulled out of this...astral dimension and back into the real world.

As the last of the abyss was replaced with ghosts of reality coalescing, along came another ghost that did not fit.  I had seen her once before, when Canzonetta had reconstructed her with moonlight, but this was no illusion.  I could...feel her presence, her soul, like she was watching.

The phantom Lucifa locked eyes with me, her semi-frayed mane swinging oddly in front of her eyes like a torn curtain, but again her mane did not ripple and waver in any cosmic wind like the sisters’.

She nodded serenely.  Just once.

I reached out...

...and she was gone.

[A2.1] Come, My Black Angel

Come, My Black Angel

Touches of pink and orange signaled the imminent onset of dawn when I materialized in the middle of what appeared to be the remains of an exploded paint shop.  I eventually realized it was an expansive garden, and with a veritable symphony of scents to match.  Vanilla and mint were the only two I could pick out; the rest were little more than a garbled mess to my me.  Some of them stung, some were relaxing, some subtle, some potent, and none of them recognizable.  The pony next to me, however, was, and thankfully this time I remembered what last time I’d forgotten.

“Violet, right?” I squeaked.

The unicorn jumped, her eyes darting every which way until they landed on me.

“Who’s that?  What are you doing here?”

Possibly the two hardest questions she could’ve posed.  The first, because unlike Deluge, she hadn’t recognized me, so I had to lie or risk exposing myself to someone who might get me arrested.  Which would be fine, if I didn’t have to...meet this pony.  Was I supposed to meet her as me, or as SIlhouette?  Would it even make a difference?

And the second, because...well.  What the heck did meeting this pony entail?  Past the obvious exchange of names and inconsequential what’s your favorite color and what kind of music do you like.  Light talk was meaningless talk and did not comprise meeting, as far as I was concerned.

“Silhouette,“ I answered.  “And I don’t really know.“

Her horn glowed suddenly and her eyes flickered, lavender flashing a violent purple.

“Forbearer.”

Talk about transparent.  It was the second time in less than a week someone had seen right through the guise, and the first time ever it had been a pony; Deluge had only bypassed it because I hadn’t put it up.  But at least Canzonetta was a dragon, and had ancient magic to boot—she had a plethora of reasons for seeing the real me.  Violet had at least one—what was it?

Her eyes flashed several more times, but she said nothing else.

“How did you know?”

“I’m—I’m sorry!” She backpedaled in fright until her hooves bumped against cobblestone landscaping.  “I didn’t mean to—I always—it’s just—I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine,” I lied.  “I just...wasn’t expecting that.”

“I—what?  You mean Forbearer?”

I flinched.  “Yes.  A dragon gave me that name.  Not too many ponies know it.”

“You—you’ve met a dragon?”  She sounded more scared than awed.

“Yes.”

“I don’t—I mean—”

She blanched and kept shrinking, the cobblestones at her hooves banging against themselves as she kept bumping into them, and eventually she tripped over them and fell into a sitting position.  It was pathetic, really, but in spite of myself, I was drawn from my shell, compelled to help this stammering wreck of a filly.  She was older than a filly, admittedly, but she was a long ways off from being a mare.  Not that there was much of a difference.

“Hey,” I said quietly.  “It’s all right.  Calm down.”

“D—dragons killed my parents,” she stuttered.  “I th—thought I was over it, but...”

I fought back the smile creeping up on me.  “I’m no dragon.  What are you so afraid of?”

“...you.”  She looked up at me, and her eyes were wide, watery.  “I...you...you have magic on you, and it smells like the same magic that dragons have.”

“You seemed fine at the shrine...”

“It’s not the same!  Mer—Sterling and Deluge were there, they could protect me.  And th—that dragon was friendly, not like the others...”

She shuddered, but her eyes darted towards my saddlebags for a split-second, flickering that violent purple again.

“And th—that scale...”

“You can see it?”

She backpedaled again.  “I’m sorry!  I didn’t mean to—I just—”

“It’s okay,” I lied.  “I’m just wondering how you saw it.”

“I’m sorry—it just...”  She took a breath.  “You’ve seen fire before, right?”

“Um.  Yes?”

“It’s like that,” she said.  “You can’t not look at it, there’s just something...magical about it.”  Her horn glowed softly again.  “The scale’s green, from a dragon with gold eyes...”

She stopped suddenly.

“It’s from that...that dragon...”

I took a step back.  “...Yes.”

She scrunched her nose and opened her eyes.  “I’m sorry.  I’m...it’s...I can’t help it.”

I raised an eyebrow and let the gesture do the asking.  She meeped in fear and stumbled over the cobblestones, but she found her footing before she planted her rear in the dirtbed.

“It’s...it’s my special talent,” she squeaked, turning sideways so I could see her cutie mark.  A purple flower, from the side.

“It’s a violet, I think,” she mumbled, but in the garden’s stillness, her voice was easily discernable.  A quiet moment passed after, and it drew attention to something I hadn’t noticed before.

There was hardly any wind.

The garden only had a few trees dotting the surrounding fields and paths to break the wind.  In a field this open, the absence of wind was a gigantic red flag.  There was something else going on here, and it wasn’t natural, if you could call anything in a magical world natural.

“A violet?”  I repeated, somewhat belatedly.

Her head bobbed slightly, like a flower swaying in the wind.  “...I don’t get it either...”

I just stared at her.  I knew it would only make it worse, but I couldn’t help it.

“You don’t know what your cutie mark means?”’

She only got quieter.  I had to strain just to hear her over the garden’s ambient rustling.

“...No...”

I kept staring at her.

“But...you know what your special talent is...?”

“...Sort of...“

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, this little purple anomaly, this little unicorn that had the mark but no idea of where her lot in life lay.

“Amnesia?”

“I...I don’t think so...?“

More silence.

“What do you know about your special talent?”

“I...I...“  She took a deep breath and straightened up, emboldened.  “...I...see.”

Undoubtedly aware I see was not much of an explanation, she edged forwards.

“May I see your...compass?”

Why not?  The thing had no practical value to me, and little sentimental value.  Descant might’ve been the closest thing I had to a friend, besides Whimsy, but it didn’t pay to keep friends.  Not for me.  I plucked the little circle of wood from my bags and gave it to her.  She opened it smoothly, her eyes yielding to that violent, magical purple again.

“Here.”  She held the wooden frame out so I could see it.  A small splotch of her purple magic appeared on the lid, revealing a silver lightning bolt embedded in the wood.  “I can see...truth,” she said, with hesitance.  “Kinda like how your goggles filter out illusions...I can see things how they really are.  And this compass...”

She turned it, watching the needle, and from the way her neck stiffened I could tell it was still pointing at me.  She’d said truth...but not the truth.  And she could tell my goggles were engineered to pierce magical illusions—mostly Whimsy’s—just by looking at them?

“...this compass points to conflict,” she said.  “And you...you smell like dragons, and...”

She turned her violet-shrouded eyes on me, then gasped softly and reeled backwards until she tripped over the landscaping stones, planting her behind in the dirt for the second time in as many minutes.  I instinctively scooped up the compass; as useless as it points to conflict sounded, if Descant had it, chances are it had more applications that it would seem at first glance.

“...you...you...”

I just stood there, silent, watching her mentally stumble over word after word until she finally assembled something coherent.

“...you’re an...the assassin...”

I had her pinned to the ground before either of us drew another breath, pressing a hoof into her neck.  Deluge hadn’t shown any indication of wanting to run or report me.  But Violet, squirming and squeaking protests I could not hear...she would run.  She reeked of fear, was practically made of it, yet I couldn’t kill her—she was the Calamus’ muse this time.  Either I let her live and take that risk, or I kill her now.  Eliminate that threat at the risk upsetting a shrine and a dragon.  At least one of them wouldn’t hesitate to enact their vengeance upon me.

I pressed harder, ignoring Violet’s desperate gasps for breath, her flailing limbs battering my sides, her complexion slowly turning blue.  True, letting her live would risk her ratting me out.  But killing her would, one way or another, ensure my demise.  The shrine was Descant’s last link to Lucifa—if I disobeyed its will, jeopordized this job, there was no telling what he would do.  To me, or to Whimsy.

After a few moments’ suspense, I lifted my hoof and backed off.  Young she might have been, but I could see it in her eyes.  She understood exactly what I meant—and exactly what I couldn’t let her do.  She lay there for a bit before getting slowly back to her hooves, never taking her eyes off me.

“You know what I mean,” I said flatly.  “You try to run, you even think of ratting me out, and you won’t live to see another dawn.”

She drew several shuddering breaths, steadying herself.  It took a while.  A long, fierce while that I filled with perhaps too much cold staring.

“I—I won’t,” she stammered.  “You know I won’t.”

“No.  I don’t.”

“I do.  There’s...you...” She breathed in, clutching her neck.  Heh.  Her natural coat color would hide the bruise.  “I can tell, Zephyr.  I can tell you’re more than just the assassin.  Condemning you for that is ignoring all the good you’ve done.”

“That’s not a whole heck of a lot,” I said quietly, ignoring the fact that she knew my name.

She said nothing, but her slight frown gave it away.  She disagreed...oddly.  But instead of voicing her concerns, she turned to the sliver of sun that had poked over the treetops, cirrus clouds radiating outwards like a supernova.

“Ever just look at it and wonder?” she said quietly.

Well, she dropped that subject quickly.  “Look at it, sure.  Wonder, not so much.”

“Not about anything?”

“I wonder now and then why Celestia and Luna need so many guards when they’re so powerful themselves.”

“Hm.”  She rubbed her chin.  “Maybe it’s because they can still only be in one place at a time...or maybe it’s something to do with being intimidating...”

Violet went on like that for a while, naming reasons from maybe they just like them to maybe they’re just creating jobs, but I was inexplicably distracted by the unicorn herself.  It was clear that, like Whimsy, she was incredibly perceptive, but unlike Whimsy, she seemed...almost defined by fear.

Yet she...trusted me.  We hardly knew each other, but I had already lowered a couple of my usual barriers, and from the way her eyes kept darting around as she talked, it seemed probable that she wasn’t used to talking this much.  Or sharing her thoughts, really.

I could tell she didn’t know where to look—I’d seen the trait hundred times over in ponies to whom social interaction is the dark side of the moon.  Reinforcing that guess was the times she chose to look directly at me.  Not only were they random times that made little sense with what she was saying, but her eyes were always quivering.  Her normal state—in fear—was a far cry from the potent...reality-seer that became when she brought her magic to bear.

“...maybe they just have them to discourage petty crimes...”

“Violet,” I said suddenly.

She looked up at me, fear dulled, but she shifted uncomfortably.

“Vi’s fine, Zephyr,” she said.

I shuffled my wings.  “It’d be best if we didn’t use that name...”

“I’m sorry.”  She tilted her head, looking at my cutie mark.  “Jetstream?”

“Sorry?”

“You need a—a name...”

“Oh, yeah.”  It would take some getting used to, but it fit my cutie mark, and that alone would divert nearly all suspicion.  And I wouldn’t have to feign Silhouette’s timidity, either—which was a bonus in itself.  It was a fragile guise that had only survived by avoiding the spotlight—or rather, light altogether—and it would stand out twice as much if I was traveling with Violet, who was already the quiet type.  Two shy ponies traveling together with no apparent leader?  I’d be suspicious, too.

 “Jetstream,” I repeated.  “It’ll do.”

Violet nodded and turned to face a paved walkway, whose end was far out of sight.  “You know, I...I never said what I had to do here, did I?”

I shook my head.  She mumbled something incoherent in response, then looked up and realized I hadn’t heard her.

“I have to...visit a place.”

“Hm.”  I rubbed my chin.  Last time all I had to do was get Deluge to Meridian and maybe intervene, but that had involved a sky-high wall of a river, a dragon that presumably perpetuated the entire water cycle alone, a unicorn wielding void magic, a Lunar Sentinel, and heck, even a Solar Warden near the end—and now all I had to do was get chummy with Violet and get her somewhere?  Hardly.

Being on-guard had long since become a habit, but I really had to reinforce it here.  I’d let it slip with Deluge—and I was lucky she didn’t do anything once she’d learned the truth.  There probably wasn’t much I could’ve done about Violet—all I had to go on was she sees truth, but there were a million different truths with a million different ways to look at them, each; it all came down to perspective.

But which one did she see?

It was irrelevant for the time being.  She’d learned who I was already.  Her talent would only become relevant if there were things actively trying to stop us—which there would be, I had no doubts.  So best figure out how exactly seeing the truth worked before then.  One thing I’d learned early on was take every advantage you can get, and having Violet at my side—and on it—would be a sizeable advantage, indeed.

“Shall we get started?”

“I...I was waiting for you...”

Violet had moved to the beginning of the stone path.  The start.

“Right.”  I cantered over, standing slightly ahead of her.  She was still young, about Whimsy’s age, but unlike Whimsy she would not be comfortable at the fore of any group; I had to look and act the leader.  “Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

She closed her eyes again, and this time the purple magic from her horn peeled off, twisting itself into a small ring that obscured the stone path before us.  But in the center of the ring was a lavender veil of magic, and through that veil, where the path had lain moments before, was a dark flight of wooden stairs, leading upwards.

“I knew it,” I muttered.

“How could you tell?”

I held up a wing.  “No wind.”

“Mm,” she said thoughtfully.  “I think I know where we are...”

She let the circle fade and she stepped forward, onto the first step, and the instant her hoof touched the wood, the illusory garden vanished.  Gone, like dust in the wind.

We were standing on a small dais, in the middle of a tiny, nearly unlit room.  Above us was a single, dying crystal lantern.  The rest of the room, including the walls, was damp almost to the point of complete saturation, and water dripped from the far corner.  Green water.  Algae?

“It’s not much,” said Violet.  “But it’s all I have.  This is where I come when I feel bad.  A place to escape...”

“You come here?  Alone?”

“No...M—Sterling comes with...”

“Mm.  You two seem pretty close.”

“He adopted me,” she said.  “I was in an orphanage almost from the day I was born...y’know, not a very nice place...but when I’d convinced myself no one would want me, Sterling came and saw me.”  A reluctant chuckle escaped her.  “I’d never seen anyone fill out paperwork that fast.”

“He seems nice enough.”

“He is.”

Violet started up the stairs, and I followed.  There was more than enough room for us to climb side-by-side, but this was her domain; I was the guest.  There were several creaky steps, and not much to prove anyone maintained anything—or rather, maintained it well.  Something occurred to me as Violet cleared the top of the steps; she’d said the orphanage was not a nice place.  But with her talent...

“Here were are.”  Violet was some combination hostess and scaredy cat when I reached the top, but the room we’d emerged into was nearly as drab as the illusion room we’d just left.  Nearly.  The walls were still aging wood, and there was still water leaking from the ceiling, but it was far better lit, thanks to a trio of bright crystal lanterns.

And the longer I looked, the more I noticed these touches of nature’s decay had been incorporated into someone’s interior design project.  Every drop of green water that fell landed in a tiny network of canals bored into the wood; all the knots in the wood had flowing engravings around them.  Even the furniture had spiral carvings bored into every exposed surface.

“Who did all of this?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.  “It wasn’t us, we just found it this way.  All we’ve found is this...”

She moved the table aside.  Underneath it was more carvings, but one stood out, small, but in dead center of the whole room.  The carving of a serpent eating its own tail—there was a name for it, what was it?—but what stood out was the word carved into the middle, the lettering graceful, elegant, but sharp and efficient.  Dust.

“This is a weird place to have a home,” I commented.  “Under a lake?”

“I don’t know why it’s here,” she said.  “But it was abandoned when we got here, and it works—nopony wants to come down here.”

“I can’t imagine why,” I said, and immediately after I mentally twisted my guts into painfully complex knots.  That kind of mouthiness was just begging for trouble.  Whimsy was rubbing off on me...but as much as I loved her, I had to put a lid on it.  Her habits, in my position?  It’d be like trying to get a mime to do stand-up comedy, only the mime is soon-to-be convict wanted for at least a dozen cases of premeditated murder.  Thanks, but no thanks.

“So where are we?”

“Underneath a lake in the Everfree,” she said.  “It’s by the old castle ruins.”

It was a start.  The Everfree’s horror stories alone did all the deterring for me.

“And where do y—we have to visit, again?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.  “It looked like...space.”

“Uh.  As in, outer space?”

“Yeah, with stars...”

Assuming I wasn’t supposed to help us get consumed by the cosmic void, I could only guess that space with stars—and the apparent, conspicuous lack of planets and galaxies—meant that this place might be related to the Calamus’ limbo state, where stars were souls.  Deluge had been pulled into the same state as me—it stood to reason that Violet had ended up there, too, if it wasn’t some racial filters, but it hadn’t sounded like her destination had looked like the same place as her limbo...

“So, uh...how do we get there?”

“I’m—I’m not sure...”  She took a deep breath.  “I kind of remember seeing something like it, once, but...”

I bit back my frustration and fought to keep my voice level.  Deluge at least had known where to start.

“So...”

“It was a long time ago...I re—remember a mountain...and a cave...”

Well, gee, that only narrowed it down to about a fourth of the total discovered landmasses, but I kept my tongue in check.

“Don’t suppose you have any ideas where it might be...”

She drooped, crestfallen.  “N—no...I’m sorry...”

I was caught between irritation and feeling bad for her, but however I felt was irrelevant; I had to press her for every detail I could squeeze out of her.  Anything that would clue us in on the cave’s location or tip us off of lurking dangers—but to my dismay, she said nothing else, no sudden recollection that would give me relief.

I buried my disappointment and filled the space with confidence, instead.  Violet would reflect however she thought I felt, and she was young.  Traumatized, perhaps, but still hopeful.  If I looked confident, she would be heartened.  If I didn’t...

“I’m sorry...“

Well, she would be heartened, if she couldn’t see right through whatever I decided to feign.  I felt my irritation vanish in spite of myself, melted away by the saddening vulnerability that Violet oozed just by virtue of being present.

“It’s okay,” I said, as much to reassure myself as her.  “I’ve worked with less before.  We just have to be careful.”

She nodded wordlessly, but even for me it was easy to tell she wasn’t convinced.  I leveled with her again, exposing my own eyes to meet hers.  If she ever turned on me, there would be Tartarus to pay.  She knew too much already.  But it was necessary; if I didn’t tell her—if I didn’t gain her trust—then our journey’s end could be delayed by weeks, and those were more weeks Whimsy would be exposed, without me.  She wasn’t ready...not for that...

“I mean it,” I said earnestly.  “You have a location.  I’ve gone on nothing but a piece of jewelry, and lemme tell you, that was hard.”

Which was perfectly true, in case she was still truesighting me.  My contractor had handed me the replica of a necklace and told me to hop to it.  I hadn’t asked if they knew the identity of the owner; even if they did, the less I knew—the less they told me—the harder it was to trace me.  The shorter the conversation, the better.

And in any case, confirmation I wasn’t about to walk into a trap and the payout were all I needed to know—though I hadn’t been expecting the necklace to be part of a matching set.  That’d thrown a bit of a wrench into things.

Violet looked at me for a moment—without glowing eyes—before slowly trotting over to a bare section of wall.  She pressed a hoof against it, and from the contact little tendrils of an oddly familiar lime-green magic curled outwards, little emerald rivers scurrying through the grooves of the wall’s carvings.  The magic formed a rippling ring before sinking into the wall, and the circle of wall opened like a flower in bloom to reveal a small hole.  Inside the hole sat a small golden ring, which also, oddly, looked familiar...but I couldn’t place it...

Violet plucked the ring from its perch and tied it around her neck with a length of fine chain.

“We haven’t figured out what it’s for,” she said.  “But it’s...too powerful to leave here.”

“And it’ll be safer with you?”

“N—no,“ she stammered.  “With you.“

“Well, I’m not carrying it,” I said.  A couple of loaded saddlebags was enough of a hindrance as it was, not counting Violet herself and now this...silly ring.

She didn’t seem surprised at my refusal, nor at my lack of reaction when she had confided I was to be the real protector.  I was already protecting her.  If she chose to carry that ring with her, that was her choice, not mine.

“Up here,” she said, taking another flight of stairs up.  I followed as soon as there was room; the staircase was only wide enough to take one of us at a time, and it was dark enough as is.  After a minute or so of climbing, I caught another glimmer of that lime-green magic, and soon after sunlight flooded the tunnel, momentarily blinding me once, then again when Violet exited the tunnel and I caught the full brunt of the unfettered sun.

I climbed out of the tunnel blinking stars from my eyes, but after a moment’s acclimation the fuzz around me resolved into the broken grey stone of the Everfree castle ruins.  It looked markedly different in the sunlight than the usual gloom, almost like it could’ve been cheery, once, but even in my isolated upbringing I’d heard enough tales of Nightmare Moon to know the real story.  There was no happiness to be had here.

But as I caught sight of the rising sun, I did remember there was one thing I continually wondered.  If spite and malice had transformed Luna into Nightmare Moon...what would it turn Celestia into?  Daydream Sun?  Not exactly the most terrifying of names...but then, being caught in a neverending dream was cruel, too, in a way...

“I’ve wondered that too,” Violet said quietly, and I snapped out of my reverie to find her watching me.  Not creepily, and not with glowing eyes.  Just curiously.  “If Princess Celestia ever turned, what would she be like...”

“I’d rather not know.”

“Me neither.”

She cantered out through a half-intact door frame, and I followed, this time falling into stride beside her.  I glanced behind at the tunnel we’d emerged from, but it was gone.

“Where—?”

She smiled sheepishly.  “That’s why we live down there.”

We made it to the castle’s stoop in silence without incident.  I wasn’t entirely sure what to say, or even where to start looking for the cave, and apparently she didn’t have any ideas, either.  We stood there awkwardly, letting the silence wash over us.  It didn’t last long, though; I needed to needle her for every tiny detail she could remember.  Anything that could help us.  Anything could help us.

“Was it snowy?”

“W—what?“

Well, that came out a bit too offensively.

“The mountain cave.  Was it snowing, or snowy?”

“I—I don’t remember...”

I grit my teeth.  Time to get down to basics.

“How did you see it?”

She looked confused for a moment, then she got it.  “I...I was inside, looking out...”

“What color was the sky?”

“B—blue, I think...?”  Her eyes widened suddenly.  “No, wait, I remember.  It was black, midnight.  There was another pony, a guard...he said he was Blackout...I was there, when I was smaller, and...” She shuddered.  “I rememeber he told me to come find him when I met a pony that smelled like a dragon...”

Blackout?

“Are you sure he said he was Blackout?  Absolutely sure?”

Violet stopped pawing at the ground and looked up.  “Yes...”

That name changed everything.  He wouldn’t recognize me—most of my marks had never seen me, let alone all the guards and bystanders—but he was still something remarkable.  He was the skilled kind of martial artist, not the showboating, theatrical kind.  But there had also been a fair number of rumors floating around claiming he possessed some very...unusual powers for an earth pony to have.  He was the first pony I’d encountered whom I could say that about.  The second was a much more recent...acquaintance.

“You know who he is, right?”

“Not really...”

“He’s not a guard. An ex-Sentinel.  Earth pony, top-tier martial artist, supposedly has unnatural powers.”

“Sentinel?”

“Solo operative.  Sentinel is Lunar.  Warden is Solar.  The...the phrase lone wolf came from a Sentinel, if you catch my drift.”

Far from the puddle of fear simmering inside me, she looked thoughtful.  “But me?  Why me?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.  “Violet, you’re an anomaly.  A precocious one at that.  The ability to see truth is astonishingly powerful, far from common, and would make for a very useful asset to anyone who controls it.”

“A—anypony?”

“No,” I corrected.  “Anyone.  Your fear of dragons can easily be used against you.”

She shuddered in fear.

“I’m just calling it how I see it,” I said flatly.  “There’s nothing to be gained by lying to you.  And you’d never believe me if I did, anyways.”

She shook her head.  “That’s not how it works.  I—truesight is not the same as your goggles.  Your goggles only filter out illusions.  Truesight, like mine...it’s never specific.  Like when I look at you, I see a bird in a dormant storm.  I can smell the rain, see the clouds, feel the wind.  I can hear the bird screeching...lying on the ground with broken wings...”

She gestured helplessly.

“Sterling took me to an old castle once.  Traps everywhere.  But all I saw was danger.  I never saw the how.”

So she didn’t see specifics, only symbolics?

“Your compass,” she continued.  “I just see it pointing to lightning, which is always conflict.  And the scale—I just saw the d—its owner.  It’s frustrating!” she burst out, ramming a hoof into the ground.  “You think it’s all useful and great, but all there is is symbols, and they could mean anything!”

“Hang on.  You said I’m a bird?  How did you know I’m an assassin?”

She looked at me sadly.  “It’s a falcon.  Predatory.  I mean, I—I know what some things mean, but the truth changes all the time...and truth itself isn’t always true...”

“What do you mean?”

“I meant, there’s more than one truth...”

I tried to get it, but couldn’t.  “I’m...not following.”

“Sorry.  I did a lot of reading on this a while ago...but I think it means that what truth is depends on who’s seeing it.”  She looked around.  “See that flower over there?  What color is it?”

“Green.”

“I see green, too,” she said.  “But what if a colorblind pony said it’s grey?  Are they wrong?”

“...No, I guess not.”

“So for us, saying that flower is green is true.  For us, that’s the truth.  For them, that flower is grey is the truth.  Do you see...?”

My head was starting to hurt.  “I...I think so...”

“I think it’s...what I see is only the truth to me,” she said.  “There was a lot more in those books that I didn’t understand, too...stuff about conditional truths and...and subjectivity or something...”

I rubbed my head.

“I didn’t really get it either,” she said sadly.  “I still don’t.  And the truth didn’t even seem to be the same thing as what is true...”

“Okay stop.  Please.”

”Sorry,” she squeaked.  “It’s...kind of important to me...“

“I know,” I said.  “But it’s really starting to make my head hurt.”

”Sorry...”

I would have to learn how her sight worked sooner or later, but it seemed incredibly complex for how simple it sounded, and sadly not something I could learn quickly.  Multiple truths?  Even if the flower looked green to one and grey to another, the flower was still the same color...too bad Whimsy wasn’t here.  She loved this sort of thing.

I floated up above the canopy—not too far—and took a good look around.  There was only a few mountains relatively close to us, but my eyes were drawn to the one bearing what appeared to be a large, white-and-gold crystal growth on its side.  No, it couldn’t be...but it had to be...

“Violet,” I said hoarsely.  “That cave?”

She looked up, worried.  “What is it?”

“I...I think it’s at the top of Canterlot Mountain.”

[A2.2] Your Time's Turning Grey

Your Time’s Turning Grey

Everfree was dominated by darkness regardless of what time of day it was.  The canopy was too dense for light to pass through; I’d used that to my advantage on a semi-regular basis.  Few expected me to hide in the forest, but nobody expected me to hide inside the canopy.  No one wanted to look there—and far too many ponies assumed a pair of wings meant you took the skies at every opportunity and hated being kept from it.

It was with mild restraint that I stayed out of the canopy this time.  Violet was less coordinated than a sleep-deprived Whimsy.  In this tangled undergrowth?  One misstep could mean entanglement, or a broken hoof.  So I stuck with her, slightly ahead, but ready to catch her if she fell.  It didn’t help that she knew full well why ponies kept out of the Everfree, and my attempts to reassure her that the monsters only attacked when provoked didn’t go so well.  I didn’t bother mentioning that most of them feared me on the she can summon lightning basis, though the idea of summoning lightning—or shooting it, as fantasies are wont to do—was absurd.  Absurd.  It was a fundemental misunderstanding.

“It’s an equalizer,” I grumbled, causing Violet to jump and smack her head on a low-hanging branch, which would’ve been fine had her mane not wound itself around the wood.  She ended up dangling there like someone’d crazy-glued her head to the tree.

“Ow,” she said, wincing but not making a single effort to free herself.  “Ow, ow, ow.”

I reached over to detangle her mane; she obligingly stayed still until I wrapped my other hoof around her midriff.  She tensed so much it looked like I’d paralyzed her, but her hair was shredded before I could pull more than half of it free.  I hadn’t expected her to drop so soon, but I reasserted myself fast enough to stop us moments before a painful crash.

“Thank you,“ she squeaked as I lowered her back onto solid ground and did my absolute best not to laugh—a good quarter of her mane had been torn off when she fell, leaving her with the appearance of having a partially shredded pink curtain thrown over her head.  “Um...what were you saying?”

“What?”  I swallowed back the snickers.  “Oh, that.  It’s nothing.”

She looked at me doubtfully, but let the topic drop.  “So, uhm...I guess we should get going?”

“Sooner than later.”  I tossed one of my remaining apples at her, silently regretting not asking Julienne if she had any leftovers; apples and dried fruit got old, quickly.  “Stay close.”

I led her away from the ruins and into the forest’s depth, in the general direction of Canterlot Mountain.  Everfree had more than enough landmarks to guide a frequent visitor; a ring of six mushrooms here, some claw-shaped branches some ways off, a perfect triangle of light shafts over there, neither of the moon nor sun.  It was a place of wild magic—the only one within Equestrian borders—and as a result, also a place of chaos, of darkness, and fear of the unknown.  Home.

The one thing that bugged me about Everfree was that it was practically impossible to tell what time it was from within.  No light cues, and oddly, no sound cues.  Day and night were meaningless to the forest’s horrors.

I helped Violet over a fallen, moss-covered tree, then nimbly followed her over and broke the silence for the first time in what seemed like days.  “Violet?”

“Mm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

She bit her lip.  “I guess...”

I took a deep breath.  “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“I don’t know.”  She looked up at the canopy, thoughtful.  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me, maybe, but...that’s just what you say.”

I almost agreed, but anything I could add here would just make doubtful, so I kept my mouth shut.

“I...I just don’t know,” she said quietly.  “I mean...I don’t doubt you’ve taken lives...but you seem, well...normal, y’know?”

I snorted.  “Me?  Normal?”

“You know what I mean.  You don’t go around killing for fun, you don’t have...that hungry look in your eyes.  And...”  Her eyes flickered.  “...there’s something really sad about a bird with broken wings...”

“I don’t think so.”

“Huh?”  She looked up.  “Why not?”

“You said broken.”

“Yeah—uh, so what?”

“Something can’t be broken unless it was whole once.  A bird without broken wings was good enough to not break their wings.”

“Oh.  Huh...I never thought about it like that.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said darkly, ducking under a branch brandishing inch-long spikes.

“W—what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you’re young.”  I sighed, preempting her muted-but-angry response.  “I know how you feel, Violet.  I was there once, too, and believe me I got pissed when I had to deal with things that I wouldn’t understand until later.  It’ll come, Violet.  It’ll come.”

Despondent gained new meaning when I looked at her.  Ears drooping, head hung low, and she gloomily pawed at the ground like she was excavating a lost work of art.  And perhaps most importantly, her tail was drooping, too—a detail all but the best of actors forgot.  She wasn’t pretending.  Not that I expected someone of her demeanor—and with her talent—to ever feign the truth.

“I guess,” she said, face forlorn.

“Chin up.  Believe me, being older isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

She just looked more morose, but she started walking again.  “I wouldn’t know.  Spent too much time worrying about the now to think about the later.  Tends to happen when you have to fend for yourself.”

I mentally noted that beneath whatever shyness and apprehension Violet lugged around, she had as sharp a tongue as Whimsy.  Presumably you’d only hear if—when she felt comfortable enough to skip the brain-mouth filters.  But underneath that, there was a hint of steel, and a filly I knew all too well; the same pony I saw whenever I looked in a mirror.  A pony that would never shy away from doing what they had to to survive.

“I know,” I said.  “I’ve been there.  I—”

I bit my tongue before I could mention Whimsy.  Faking compassion—or only have smidgens of it—was safe enough, but to reveal the pony I cared about the most?  Too easily exploitable.

Violet squinted at me, and I saw a glimmer of magic.  “Whimsy...?”

Crap.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

She looked suddenly alarmed, and I belatedly realized my voice had lapsed into the icy, distant tones that one normally associates with a cold-blooded killer.  Whoops.

“Sorry,” she said hurriedly.  “I didn’t mean to—I just—I only heard whimsy, I don’t know—”

Relief flooded through me.  She’d only heard whimsy.  She had no idea the sway the word held over me...the kind of influence it had...

“It’s okay.  Just...old memories.”

“Mm,” she said, unconvinced, which in hindsight was probably a state she spent a lot of time in.  But thankfully, she didn’t pursue the subject.

We took the long route around a small pond giving off a thick, grey haze that obscured the trees on the far side—not that visibility was that great to begin with—but if my presence alone hadn’t scared off all the forest’s inhabitants, the pond would finish the job.  It was a lake of some strange, silvery goop that, as far as I knew, was unidentified, but if the creatures avoided it, chances were it didn’t exactly improve survival.  I hadn’t ever seen any ill effects come of it, but then I’d never been stupid enough to stick my hoof in or drink any, either.

Lingering around with the fumes hanging in the air undoubtedly wasn’t healthy, either, but it was take the long way around, or brave a crumbling stone bridge that looked like a good sneeze would send it tumbling into the river it spanned.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Sadly I’d forgotten that the lake’s fringes were still treacherous terrain for a pony not used to the mix of rocks and roots, and it wasn’t long until I had to slow down and Violet navigate the maze of tripping hazards safely.

“Sorry,” I said, catching her as she leapt across a small ditch and fell short.  “Not used to lifting ponies, or I’d fly us over there.”

She half-grunted and wriggled out of my grip, onto solid ground.  “No, I should learn how to do this...”

“Do what?”

“Not trip over my own hooves every five minutes,” she said irritably, advancing to the next stepping stone.  “Must be great, being coordinated...”

I ignored the biting jealousy in her voice and shrugged.  “Practice.  That’s all it is.”

“I’m sure,” she muttered, without looking at me, but she pressed on, determined to master her own four hooves.  I followed close behind—close enough to catch her, but not close enough to make her uncomfortable or feel like she was dragging me down.

In truth I didn’t mind at all—I’d done this a million times before with Whimsy, and she still hadn’t quite stopped stumbling every now and then.  Yet oddly she had no issues frolicking around in the treetops...perhaps Violet had some area of odd comfort, too...

We made it around the remainder of the lake in silence and with no further incident, reentering Everfree’s impenetrable thicket, and I took the lead again once I was sure Violet wasn’t going to plant her face into a tree or anything.  We both breathed a sigh of relief when the silvery haze dwindled into nothingness.

She did squeak a bit when she noticed the enormous boulder she’d followed me around was in reality the entrance to an underground cave, and there did come a deep growling from its shadowy maw, but nothing emerged.  Nothing would.  Lightning was a terrifying force to virtually every animal alive.  Except for Holly.  And I guess, me.  There was something beautiful about it, about the sudden, chaotic, efficient, and price balancing of scales...

“Um...Jet?  Zephyr?”

“Yes?”

“Why are all the creatures in here afraid of you?”

So she’d seen the fear stowed away in the shadows.  I smiled, holding up a foreleg.  “You know what my bands do, right?”

She squinted at the grey ring, violet magic flickering again.  “Not exactly.  I see lightning, but..they’re conflict?  Doesn’t make much sense...”

I kept smiling.

“No.  They can store lightning.”

She looked confused, so I let a bit of the chained energy free, allowing it a jagged line of pure blue-white to briefly connect the two bands with the familiar whisper of thunder.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, stumbling backwards but thankfully not entangling herself in anything this time.  “I—you—what?”

“That’s why the creatures here are afraid of me,” I said meaningfully.  “Lightning.”

“Oh.”  She squinted at my bands again.  “I’ve...never seen that before.”

My smile faded.  “Yeah, they...the pony who made them destroyed the, ah...blueprints after making a working prototype.  Something about them being too dangerous.”  I bit my lip before I could mention the other reason.  Hard enough to draw blood, which distracted me from actually thinking the other reason, too.

Violet didn’t seem any more inclined to question me further, and for a change she didn’t keep sneaking sideways glances at me, either.  With suspicion wasn’t an entirely new way for me to be treated, but being investigated by a pony with the ability to not just see, but sense, truth?  There was sure to be something she’d find that she wouldn’t be able to rationalize.

We entered a small clearing whose center was occupied by a triangular stone obelisk.  Violet paused in front of it, then walked around it, inspecting the decorative glyphs adorning each face.  I’d seen every side of the obelisk, before and still found the glyphs puzzling.  Whimsy had found them intriguing, but neither one of us had been able to decipher their meanings.  The most I knew about them was that each face featured various depictions of a different animal.  A shark, a heron, and a spider.

“Hm,” Violet said thoughtfully.  “I’ve seen these before...”  She brought her magic to bear, a violet veil enshrouding the stone from top to bottom.

But nothing changed.

“Huh.”  She rubbed her chin.  “Guess it’s just a plain old monument.”

A light fog crept into the clearing as we left, the stone almost mournful at our parting, with only a lonely mist for company.  Everfree played host to a myriad of mysteries—purportedly there was even a stillwater pond that could clone creatures—but the obelisk edged towards the more obscure.  Unlike the pond, the underground illusory room and living area we’d just come from, or even the Shaman, there was no immediately apparent magic about it.  Whimsy had even said it looked no more magical than any other run-of-the-mill rock, which just about settled it.

“Violet?”

“Mm?”

“What was with that room we were in?”

“Oh, that?  It was there when we found that place.  It’s, erm...we’re not sure.  It takes your dream and makes it...real.  Sort of.  You saw what it was like.”

“Mhm.”

“We took to calling it the observatory.”  She paused as helped her across a rickety wooden bridge that spanned a small chasm.  “The thing that gets me is that it’ll only recreate details that you think of.  Like...you know how in dreams, you can’t feel, or smell?”

“Aye.”

“It won’t recreate those things unless you consciously think of them.”

I filed away a mental note to ask her later why the garden we were in had scents, and a lot of scents, but it was so obvious.  She’d been there before—she’d smelled it all before.  Someone like her probably had an astoundingly good memory.

“So...that garden...”

She dropped her gaze.  “It’s real.  It’s the only thing I remember from...from when I was young.”

Well, maybe not that good.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, but I saw a flicker of irritation cross her face.  “Don’t be.  I’m almost glad, with that room and all...”

“Nightmares too, huh?”

“Yes.  Sterling doesn’t like it much, but nopony makes him go in there.”

I silently decided never to go in there again if I could help it.  But on the other hoof, getting Whimsy in there...actually, no, that’d be just as terrifying.  That pony’s imagination held just as many horrors as wonders, and neither knew any sort of boundaries when it came to how...creative they were, in spirit.

A gap in the trees appeared, but it didn’t lead out of the forest.  To the contrary, it led to a sickly-green bog with what seemed like more than its fair share of frogs.

“C’mon,” I said.  “The mountain’s not much further.”

It was becoming harder and harder to bite back my fear, which was never a good sign.  Canterlot itself wasn’t the problem, it was getting Violet to the top of it, which meant bypassing Celestia knew how many guards, and even then, once we got there...well, I had to pray that Blackout wouldn’t deduce my identity.  Ugh.

I didn’t have a problem with fear itself, for the most part.  Fear is a survival instinct.  The problem I had with fear was when it began to override rationality, which in my case had happened only once, as far as I could remember.  But when it did...

My thoughts were interrupted by a silvery glimmer, flashing through the trees ahead of us, gleaming with the many hues of a rainbow, resolving into a prismatic snake that wove through the trees with a needle’s precision.  It slowed and came to a halt in front of us, pulsing, breathing.  Alive.

And yet at my side, Violet did not flinch.

“Hello, Flicker,” she said casually.

The snake split open, becoming a rend in the air, gaping, widening, like a mouth.  And from the shimmering maw came a miniature creature—but none like I’d ever seen.

It was small, scaleless, vaguely dragon-shaped, and its smooth skin transitioned seamlessly from teal to pink and back again, spotted here and there with white freckles.  Two featherlike antennae extended from its head, and its wings looked mostly like that of a butterfly, save for the shredded-looking back end.  Each wing was a salmon-pink, shifting to purple near the edges, and they each bore a series of identical, intricate white markings, including a crescent moon at their tips.  Another unmarked dorsal ridge ran from its head all the way to the tip of its curled tail, and despite the claws at the end of its four limbs, it looked about as harmless as harmless gets—though that alone was more than enough cause to be wary.

“Greetings!  How fare you, Violet?”

Its voice was female and unmistakeably young, but its cadence, its timbre—it felt extraordinarily, unbelievably alien.  And its eyes...its whiteless eyes were a purple so deep they were almost black.  Little portals into a being unknown...

“The same.  You?”

“As usual.  But not, I think, for too long.  Your friend has buried more than bodies.  The why eludes me.”

I twitched.  The Calamus couldn’t ever send me somewhere where there wasn’t some crazy magical beings flipping through my past life like the morning paper, could it?  Was nothing sacred?

“Can it,” I told the creature.  “You don’t want to know.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t,” I repeated venomously.  “Nose out if you know what’s good for you.”

“If you will.”  The creature floated a hair backwards and bowed its head.  “In this eon, I am known as Flicker.”

“I take it you already know my name,” I growled.

“All of them,” said Flicker, amused.  “There is little that can hide from me.”

I said nothing.  How could I?  The less that was known about my past, the better.  Period.  There was too much there, too many ways to exploit me or Whimsy.  No, my past was best left in the shadows.

“So what are you doing here?” Violet asked.  “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Flicker opened her mouth and vanished completely.

“What?”

Then she was back, with barely a glint of magic to mark her return.

“A pony with a new, ancient power has entered the world,” the creature said.  “She will need help.  I will provide it.”

And in the same manner, Flicker vanished, but this time I saw her go—she faded out and went from solid to ghost in the blink of an eye, and in another blink she was, again, gone completely, nothing but a few lingering silver sparks in her place.

“You lost me,” I told the spot she’d been hovering in.  Really, I was lucky, having the few beings who had information on me also not really caring enough to do anything with it.  However careful I was, it was inevitable someone, somewhere, somehow, would eventually pry up enough evidence to bury me, or at least exile me.  Flicker, Canzonetta, Deluge, Violet, Eve...thank Celestia none of them wanted to turn me in.  Well, could, in Eve’s case.  I’d long since stopped agonizing over why the twin sisters did nothing about me; it was almost guaranteed that they knew pretty much everything about me.

“She’s a faerie dragon,” Violet explained.  “She’s basically half-magic.  When she disappears like that, she’s phasing in and out of the astral—err, fae plane.  Sorry, the astral plane is for unicorns.”

“I thought there was only one magical plane.”

“Mm-mm.”  She shook her head.  “Two.  The astral plane, for unicorns, and the fae plane, for wild magic.  I kinda think they’re just reflecti—hey, where are you going?”

“To Canterlot.  Unless you can’t walk and talk at the same time for more than five minutes?”

She winced and hurried to catch up with me.  “Sorry.  Don’t really get to talk about this with anypony...”

I knew that feeling.  “It’s okay.  I understand.  I just—I’d rather we stay moving.”  I gestured at the canopy.  “We still have no idea what time it is.”

“Oh, that.”  Violet closed her eyes, but her horn did not glow.  “It’s...a little past midnight.  Sorry, forgot to check.”

I gave her a sharp glare.  As sharp as I could manage, anyways.  Without stopping, and with us both walking side-by-side.  “How do you know?”

“It’s...well, easy,” she said.  “The two planes shift with day and night.  I can—well, any unicorn can, if they’re sensitive enough—feel which plane has the bigger presence here, and right now it’s the fae plane.”  She paused.  “It’s got nothing to do with, ahm...truesight.”

“You need a better name for that,” I commented, pressing my side into a small ledge and bracing myself, so she could climb up.  “It’s so...beyond sight.”

“I know.”  She clambered onto me—she was unsurprisingly light, even for me—then onto the ledge, waiting until I leapt up after her.  I found her wearing a bit of a frowny, puzzled expression when I did.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can I be honest with you?”

I stopped short.  “You haven’t been?”

“No, no!  It’s just—I mean—I don’t want to offend you or anything—”

I snorted.  “I’ve been called a lot of things.  Take your best shot, I can take it.”

She clammed up, staring blankly at me like I was an odd-looking weed in a garden.  I itched to keep walking, but if there was going to be conflict between us, it would be better to resolve it here and now.  Much preferable to doing it in the middle of the densely-populated, guard-filled heart of Equestria.

“You’re weird,” she said suddenly.

“Nice try.  No dice.”

There were about sixteen different answers—all legitimate—to my question, but I had to ask anyways.  I had to know what and just how much she knew.

“So why am I weird?” I asked, endeavoring to sound curious rather than demanding.

“Um...where do you want me to start?”

“Anywhere you like, as long as we keep moving.”

I started forward again, and she tailed close behind, answers spilling from her like stones from a sack.  “Well...you smell like a dragon.  I’ve only ever met two other ponies that did—one of them could turn into a ferret, and the other...could do things she shouldn’t be able to do.  Things I’ve never seen anypony but her do.”  She took a breath.  “You didn’t freak out when Flicker appeared.  You haven’t asked why I know her.  You have a weapon most wouldn’t believe.  You—”

“Okay, I get it,” I grumbled.  “Little observant, are you?”

“I can’t help it,” she muttered.  “Oh, and—most pegasi I’ve met hate being earthbound.”  She gestured at the canopy.  “But we’ve been in here for hours and can’t even see the sky, but you aren’t bothered by that at all.  You haven’t even unfurled your wings, except to...preen them,” she added sheepishly.

I could help but smile.  She was sharp.

“I’m used to it,” I said simply.  “And Flicker was strange, I’ll admit, but I’ve seen a lot of strange things—she’s not very high up on the list.  As for the dragon-scent thing...I’ll let you figure that out on your own.”

A ghost of a smile played about her mouth.  “And the preening is because you flavor your feathers?”

“Ew, no.  That’s nasty.”

She grinned and said nothing; we kept on, guided by Everfree’s subtle landmarks.  We’d just made it past a rickety wooden bridge when she spoke again.

“So uh...you’re not too weirded out by Flicker knowing who you are.”

I almost stumbled.  “It’s usually not a good idea to threaten those whose capabilities I don’t know.  Usually.”

I could feel her squinting at me, but she passed no further comment.  A bend in a near-stillwater, uninhabited river told me that we were getting close to the forest’s edge, but what I was not expecting was the two dark figures at its banks.  One was the Shaman, easily distinguishably by her brown cloak and—despite the darkness—the glimmer of her ever-present golden rings, and the other, intermittently vanishing and reappearing as she was, was unmistakeably Flicker.  The Shaman appeared to be in a trance, put there by a bowl with rising vapors in front of her, and was murmuring in her strange tongue to the shifting waters .  A few days ago I would’ve thought she was insane for doing so, but I knew better now.

I was hoping we could pass them unnoticed, and we undoubtedly would have but for Flicker, who turned almost the instant we saw them.  I felt her this time, radiating layered whispers of magic, the roars and screeches and calls of the wild mingling into a weave of noise, soft, quiet.  Yet I heard the distinct hints of fang and claw, a steely ring that threatened to devour any who wandered too far into the fae plane.  And if I could hear it that well, that clearly...then Flicker was an incredibly potent creature.  She’d send Whimsy into convulsions for sure.

Flicker wandered over.  “Oh, hello.”

“Hey, Flicker,” Violet said.  “What’re you guys up to?”

“We are communing.  Would you join us?”

Violet looked at me, an unspoken plea for permission.  She wouldn’t need it.  As much as the Shaman weirded me out—she could perform magic with a jar of weeds, for Celestia’s sake—I wanted to join them, too.  I already knew who they were talking to, and it was someponyI wanted to see again.  Somepony whom I could trust, and somepony who would be inclined to offer aid if I needed it.

Violet looked a little intrigued when I didn’t respond and simply followed Flicker back to the Shaman, but she followed nonetheless.  The Shaman, however, did not move as we joined her, but as I’d expected, there was an image on the river’s surface, a reflection of neither any part of the forest nor its inhabitants.  I gave the rippling figure a curt nod, and at once the water erupted, a blue blur barely visible within a thickset spray of of ice-cold water.

“Hello, De’,” I said casually.

The weathermare dried herself off with a quick shake and landed next to us.  She looked, still, no different except for a slight shimmer in her eyes, like the light at the bottom of a pool.  The only evidence that she had absorbed the memories of a dying dragon, and with them, a deep connection to the primal magic that had given birth to Equestria.  To the world, really, as I understood it.

“Hey, you two,” she said.  “I wasn’t expecting to see either one of you so soon.”

“Me neither,” I admitted.  “But there were...a few signs I noticed.  Seems your new job has earned some attention.”

The Shaman, though dripping with water, calmly opened her eyes and surveyed us with some curiosity; that alone stopped Deluge from replying.  Evidently it was news that I was involved in her...ascendance.

“And what is this I find before me?  Is that the child of storms I see?”

“It is.”

I still had no idea why the Shaman insisted on calling me the child of storms, but then, lightning was, at least in part, kind of my callsign.  In any case, it was preferable to both my real name or any title that alluded to my profession.  It meant I could converse with her without revealing my identity to others.  I got the feeling she knew who I was and what I did, but for one reason or another she never bothered to turn me in.  Too isolated, perhaps.

But then she turned to face me and lowered her head so far it brushed the grass.  I felt myself stiffen from head to hoof in shock, paralyzed, and I still hadn’t recovered several seconds later, when she rose from her bow.

“Then it is thanks that I must give, for by your deeds, the world still lives.”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t news.  “You’re welcome?”

The Shaman looked ever-so-slightly crestfallen at that.  “It is my duty to guide her kind, but some pony has disturbed my peace of mind.  She cares not for safety or life, you see, and she does not give many a chance to flee.  Numerous ruins has she left in her wake, in zealous pursuit of some higher stake.”

Zealous pursuit....numerous ruins?

“She wears a cloak all the time, too, doesn’t she?  With a silver ring?”

“It is more than a ring of silver, I think.  Between that and her power, there must be a link.”

I nodded in agreement.  I’d noticed nothing remarkable about Dust besides her apparent magical abilities, but both times I had seen her, that silver ring was there, keeping her cloak on.  Hm...

“Uhm...did it look like this?”  Violet held up the ring she’d brought along.

I wordlessly took it from her, turning it over.  It was crude, cold to the touch, unpolished, uneven...except for two tiny, identical indents on the sides of an oddly clean bump—a bump that was mirrored on the other side of the ring.

A serpent’s head.

“Huh,” I said, showing it to Violet.  “Look at this.”

She scrunched her nose and took it back, examining it for several moments, but she said nothing when she slung the necklace over her head again.  I could almost hear her brain buzzing with as many questions as revelations; it was like she shut down her physical presence entirely.  Her silence went unnoticed by anyone besides me—and Deluge.

“Wish I could go with you guys,” Deluge grumbled, aware that the awkward silence would only put more pressure on Violet.  “I want to find out how she did that...bow thing.”

“Yeah, that was weird, I dunno how she did that.”  Truth be told, I had some ideas, mostly involving the near-universally unknown powers of earth ponies, but even Whimsy didn’t know half of what they were capable of, and she could literally see magic.

“She is the end of an act most disputed.  Many have fought over her, and perish they did.  This is only what I know, of course, but...”

What she knew turned out to be a monologue that was closer to a dense slab of tangled rhymes than a story.  It sounded like a love story of all things—and painfully lame one at that—and it continued in that vein until I was bending over the river, trying my hardest not to choke on all the cheese.  Blah blah blah they fall in love via some contrived coincidence, blah blah blah doe eyes, blah blah they kiss, blah blah happily ever after.  Guh.

Then just when it seemed like it had ended, I guess it was mauled by some natural disaster, because it suddenly sounded like someone had woken up and decided the dragon population was twice as big as it needed to be.

“...and that is all I know, I’m afraid.  What lies after the end is merely in shade.”

“What?  You don’t know how it ends?”

“No,” said Flicker.  “It has just begun, and the question lives unanswered.”

“Question?”

“It has plagued a number of my friends,” the Shaman said.  “Just what happens, after the end?”

“End?” Violet asked curiously.  “Like...death?”

“Death.”  Flicker seemed to glow at the word.  “Many, many things can die.  Most do not think a story can die.  They do.  Every story has its end, but their death comes only when they are forgotten and lost to the ages.”

Deluge shuffled uncomfortably in the silence; I pictured...something...fading away into nothingness, before Deluge turned to me.  “So I take it you two need to get somewhere?”

“Canterlot,” I replied reflexively.  “Okay, the summit, actually, but—”

“Yeah, I don’t think either Princess would be chuffed with you two just appearing up there.”

“Probably not.” Violet emerged from her reverie, but not entirely; she still looked a little out of it, like...like she knew, but didn’t understand why or how Deluge was different.  “But how are you—?”

I caught the sparkle in Deluge’s eyes.  “You don’t think I was just going for a swim, do you?”

Violet muttered something indistinct, but before I could intervene, Deluge’s eyes clouded, a veil of mist obscuring them momentarily.

“Sorry.”  She shook her head, and her eyes cleared.  “Apparently there’s a tsunami headed for Seaddle.”

“I’ll explain it to her,” I said sharply.  “Can you get us up there or not?”

She nodded curtly, took a stunned Violet by the hoof, dragged her around, and shoved her into the river.  Violet promptly disappeared beneath the surface, eyes wide, panicking.

“What?” she said when I look at her in shock.  “You must know by now, if I tried to convince her to do it herself we’d be here for weeks.  I don’t think either one of us has that kind of time.”

“I guess not.”  I took a breath and jumped into the surprisingly warm river, surfacing just in time to catch Deluge’s parting words.

“Thank you for all the help,” Deluge said.

“It was wisdom, nothing more.”  The Shaman bowed.  “But I am honored to be your mentor.”

“You did not need much assistance,” Flicker noted.

“Canzonetta knew a lot,” Deluge said softly.

Flicker continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted.  “It was no trouble.  I have done the same for all of your kind, and there is one thing you must know:  Perception alone creates time, a beginning, and an end.  Always remember.”

“I will.”

I pushed a clingy Violet off until I could breathe.  Perception created and colored many things, that was true.  But Flicker?  Assisting every Sapphire Paradigm, who had presumably existed from almost the universe’s inception?  The notion seemed ridiculous, yet here she was...

Violet thrashed wildly in my grip when I tugged her out of the way to make room for Deluge.  The weathermare slid into the river smoothly and, when she was entirely underwater, laid a reassuring hoof on her friend.  I locked hooves with hers, and that was the last thing I felt before she dragged us out of the water and into realms unknown.

[A2.3] Here in This Moment of Silence

Here in This Moment of Silence

The river melted and turned into liquid light.  Deluge’s hoof pulled and I, by no will of my own, followed.  She took us upwards, into the sky.  Above the forest.

It was like civilization had been ripped out of existence.  Gone were Canterlot’s marbled spires.  Gone were the pastel homes of Ponyville.  Gone were the railroads, the gardens—even Cloudsdale.  All that remained was pure, unadulterated wilderness, frozen in time.

The green of the forest, the sky’s blue, even, somehow, the mountain’s grey—every color came to life, given striking vividity by fae magic.  And with Deluge here, the new Sapphire Paradigm...every lake, every river, every had been set ablaze with what looked like blue fire.  Smoke the color of cobalt rose from their flames, curling and twisting skyward in prolonged death.

Yet...ponies themselves, nature’s children—they were still here, but only ghosts of what they really were, colors dulled and solidity weakened.  And oddly, most of Ponyville’s occupants remained largely unaffected, while almost all of Canterlot’s were almost invisible.  All of them but one.  A lone pony in the highest spire, who appeared as a pitch-black cutout through which space was clearly visible.

Luna.

PrincessLuna.

Damn it, Whimsy.

We were floating above Everfree—but not midair.  There was no air here.  None.

Adrenaline surged as I tried to draw breath, but I couldn’t.

I didn’t have to.

“Welcome to the fae plane,” Deluge said.  “Wild magic’s home.”

I was contemplating the no-breathing phenomenon when something collided with me, hard, bowling me end over end—with no hope of recovery, thanks to the lack of an atmosphere.  At least until whatever was holding us up reexerted itself, and we slowly spun to a halt.  Then I noticed who’d tackled me.

“WHIMSY!”

“Ow,” Whimsy protested into my neck.  “Chill, Featherbrain, I’m fine, but not for long if you crush me.”

I released her.  “Sorry.  I’ve...I’ve been worried.”

“I know.”  She stuck her tongue out at me, but returned a light hug.  “Really, I’m okay.”

She sounded different, but...so did I.  Something was affecting our voices.

“It’s mental,” Deluge said, and now that I had noticed, I easily picked out the odd echoes, the ethereal quality of her voice.  Of all of our voices.  “No air, no sound.  But we all, deep down, come from the wild, and so we can hear each other.”  She looked out over the forest.  “We all speak the same language.”

“Duh,” said Whimsy.

“What are you doing here anyways?” I asked her, trying to ignore how odd it felt to have no air under my wings.  I really wanted to fold them, but instinct refused.

“Waiting for Deluge.  She said she had someone to visit before we head out.”

“Well,” Deluge said.  “I’m almost finished.  Just gotta drop these two off at Canterlot.”

“Wait, where are you two headed?”

“Flood in Seaddle, remember?”

I frowned.  “But why do you need Whimsy?”

“Gotta stop ‘em from panicking.  Plus, the less ponies know about me, the better.”

I couldn’t help a grin in response.  “Aye.  Hope she’s feeling up to it.”

“I’m right here,” Whimsy grumbled.  “And just you wait.  They’ll think the ocean’s a salt lick when I’m done with ‘em.”

I knew she was bluffing.  She’d never weaved any sort of illusion on a scale large enough to deceive an entire city.  But then, she never had any reason to, and she was more than clever enough to figure out ways that might save her those few, crucial ounces of effort.

So I winked at her.  “Try not to make it stick, will you?”

“Pff.  You’re no fun.  A giant ball pit, then.”

Deluge cleared her throat.  “Just so you guys know, time is still passing for us, just not for the world, if you catch my drift.”

I nodded.  Who would want to return to a world they’d out-aged—to the world they knew, while they themselves had grown old?  “Stay safe,” I told Whimsy, cuffing her on the back.

Any and all levity she was toting disappeared.  “I will.”

Pride felt like a warm sun inside me.  She had come so, so far, and she knew just how much she meant to me...our separation only threw that into sharper focus.  I was nothing without her, but she...she could be anything she wanted to be.  Anything.

“Let’s go,” Deluge said shortly, grabbing hold of Violet with one hoof and me with the other.  She dragged us—also without her wings—towards Canterlot.  Whatever she was using, however she was using it...it was invisible, but it took maybe a minute before we were floating before Canterlot’s massive drawbridge.

“Hm,” I said.  “So you don’t turn into water or anything?”

She laughed.  “I thought that at first, too, but no.  It’s—okay, I’d tell you if I had the time, but I really gotta go.  Vi might’ve figured it out by now though.”

Violet looked her dangling hooves.  “Maybe.  But...you have a lot to tell me.”

“When I have time,” Deluge said sadly.  “I don’t have a whole lot anymore.  Anyways, off you go.”

She flung us towards Canterlot’s moat of light, and as soon as we touched it, I felt the fae magic slip away, and reality return to us.  Or we returned to reality...I couldn’t be sure.  Without fae magic surrounding me, I felt...weakened, like part of me was missing.  But the sensation didn’t last long—Violet clearly didn’t know how to swim.

[A2.4] Follow, My Savior

Follow, My Savior

We were lucky the drawbridge was closed pending nightfall.  After shoving a physically inept unicorn onto the moat’s banks, I was in no mood to deal with anypony’s inquisitive looks, wondering why two ponies had just appeared in a moat without so much as a splash or sound.

“Should’ve just told her to drop us off at the observatory,” Violet muttered, whipping the water out of her tail.

I shook my head.  “No.  I don’t think she can, er...cross realms without enough water to submerge herself in.”

“Rain?”

“It’d have to pool somewhere, or you’d probably come out looking like shredded paper.”

“Halt!”

A head popped over one of the turrets, blue helmet shining gold with twilight’s many colors.

“Who goes there?”

“Jetstream and Violet,” I called back.

“And what is your business in Canterlot?”

A second head appeared next to him, whispered something in his ear, then vanished in a swirl of shadows.

“Ah, forgive me,” the guard called.  “Your escort will be down in a moment.”

I eyed the spot where the second guard had vanished.  The first had just popped up.  The second had appeared.  And an escort?  Just who was expecting...oh.

“Oi,” I said, peeling Violet off my leg and speaking a calm I did not feel.  “Calm down.  It’s him.”

And right on cue, a shadowy swathe erupted from the turret’s shadow in front of us, resolving itself into a pony that I wasn’t entirely thrilled to see.  He didn’t seem to recognize me, but as hard as I tried and as perfect as it seemed, there had to be a trail I left behind.  All it took was someone patient enough to see it through.

“Hello, Violet,” Blackout said, lowering the black cloth covering his mouth.  Truth be told, he was wearing nothing but black cloth.  That and set of very lumpy boots.

“B-B-Blackout?  How do—?”

Blackout smiled toothily.  “I know your name?  I knew your parents, Violet.  Pretty well, actually.”

He spoke with an accent I couldn’t place, and more importantly, was almost ignoring me.  Almost.  Good sign.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Jetstream,” Violet said promptly.  “Just a weathermare.”

Blackout eyed my goggles.  “I see.  Now, I believe you were sent here by the Calamus, no?”

I locked my neck so I couldn’t nod.  Violet had to do the leading here; I was the third wheel.  Acting like I was anything else would only draw suspicion.  Which was unfortunate, because Violet looked almost paralyzed, but when she glanced sideways, I shot a quick look at Blackout.  She got the hint and nodded.

“I have something to show you, but it will have to wait.  There’s something else I must attend to first.  Lower it,” he commanded the gate guards.  They complied, night completing its fall as Blackout led us into a starlit Canterlot.  The streets were mercifully empty save for the occasional wanderers, most of whom were clutching a wine bottle or cooking pot.  It gave me a clear enough view of—and a clear shot to—all the nooks and crannies, alleyways and dead ends.

But there was more than that.  I blinked hard and shook my head when he wasn’t looking; there was two phantom earth ponies that were repeatedly stopping to ‘knock’ at seemingly arbitrary doors.  Go home, you two.  Go home.  You don’t belong here.

“Come on,” Blackout said.  “I can get you two a room in the palace.”

I fought to keep my face impassive.  Palace lodging?  I figured the post-service benefits were nice, but not that nice.  And he’d emerged from a shadow...or at least appeared to.  Blackout was more than he was letting on.  Or he was, perhaps, still in government employ.

“I’d love that,” Violet murmured.  “Thank you.”

I nodded in agreement, though...maybe I could sneak a cloud in there.  That’d be nice.  But there was that thing Blackout had to take care of...I drummed up what focus I had left and forced the creeping onset of irresistable sleep back.  There would be no sleep tonight, at least.  Not for me.

My stomach rumbled, too loudly to pass it off as anything else.  Blackout didn’t even turn around.

“I’ll have the cooks bring up some food, too,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said sheepishly, eliciting a stifled giggle from Violet as we entered the vacant market square.  There were plenty of empty wooden carts, but what drew my eyes was the fountain in the center.  It depicted a stone alicorn—a familiar stone alicorn.  Crystal clear water poured out of the spirals in a stone Lucifa’s horn, forming a perfect glass umbrella before cascading into the fountain’s base.  Moonlight cast half the statue in shadow and granted the rest a soft silver glow, and the layers of falling waters bent the light into dangerously hypnotizing patterns.

I couldn’t remember if that fountain was there before—but then, I’d only spent a few years in Canterlot.  A far cry from a lifetime—and I wasn’t exactly fond of those memories.  In either case, Violet’s eyes were glazed over with a lavender sheen, and she was swiveling them somewhat fearfully in every direction.  She’d mention a threat if she saw one.  Still no reason to get complacent.

So I turned my eyes on the empty carts as we rounded the fountain and continued towards the palace.  They were as good a place to hide—most were indistinguishable from one another, and they were too spread out to watch all of them simultaneously.  The picturesque carved distraction only made them more advantageous.  But I heard nothing besides our hoofsteps, and the brisk night wind, and the only things visible were a few skittering rats and those two earth pon—darn it, you two.  Go home.

A crescent moon hovered far above us, shining, serene.  An indigo veil dotted with stars flanked it, unmarred by clouds.  There was no hiding in that kind of sky.

The appearance of innocuity persisted until we crossed the Palace’s courtyard and arrived at its grandiose, imposing double doors.  Three Lunar Guards stood watch, one of each race, steel-tipped spears glowing softly in the mountain’s shadow.  A large symbol was emblazoned on the doors—a sort of half-sun, half-moon thing.

Blackout nodded curtly to each guard in turn.  “They’ll just be staying the rest of the night.”

The unicorn guard nodded, and with practiced fluidity, each guard moved to one of three stone circles embedded in the ground.  The circles were surrounding another, much larger stone disc, which was carefully engraved with the same symbol as the door.

Blackout harrumphed.  “I hate doing this.”

He stepped onto the central disc and drew a deep breath.

“Wanderer of perilous seas, atoned

Guardian of ancient peaks, deponed

Raven and dove circle above.”

Both symbols—on the door and on the central stone—instantly lit up with magic on the last word, one half gold, the other, silver.  Sun and moon.  The doors swung soundlessly open, revealing a ostentiously decorated foyer.  Despite the starlit sky outside, there was a surprising amount of activity inside.

Harried ponies, papers held carefully in clenched teeth, appeared in open doors and hallway entrances only to vanish down another.  More Lunar Guards were peppered throughout the ebb and flow, indigo armor and the occasional pair of batlike wings glowing softly with shafts of moonlight, allowed in through lofty windows.

I turned and was half-finished taking off when I realized—chickening out would only make me more suspicious, something I should—augh—really know by now.  I gulped and dredged up what little determination I had left.  I needed sleep, and soon.  A hot meal would be n—damn it.  Now was not the time for happy dreams and wishful thinking.  Okay, maybe it never was.  Not for me, anyways.

Focus, damn it.

Blackout, blissfully oblivious to my plight, shuddered as he stepped off the stone.  The earth pony respectfully thanked the guards, who saluted and returned to their posts with some indistinct muttering.  Violet was not so inattentive.

“Have to do that every time,” Blackout grumbled, “unless the Princess is having an open court.  Which is pretty rare.”  He pretended to claw at his tongue, as though he could scrub the poem off.  “I hate reciting that.”

“I thought it was pretty,” Violet murmured.  Blackout snorted, helping the inner guards pull the doors shut.

“You wouldn’t if you knew what it meant,” he said quietly.  “Trust—what’s up with your eyes?”

She stopped short, unconsciously reeling her magic back in.  “I, uh...I...”

Blackout let her stammer for a moment, emerald-green eyes inferring, calculating.

“Mm,” he said thoughtfully, like he understood.  Both of us froze stiff, and even the guards had grown still, listening with bated breath.  But Blackout said no more on the subject, and I finally managed to tear my eyes away from him, only to notice something odd.  The Lunar Guards in the palace roamed freely through the eastern half—the half decorated mostly with white and gold.

“This way,” Blackout said, shooting a swift glare at the entry guards, transfixed by Violet’s still-glowing eyes.  The guards hurriedly resumed their stoicism, and Blackout led us into the fray.

I drew a deep breath and thought of Whimsy, nigh-immune to her surroundings.  It was one thing to see a small swarm of guards.  It was another entirely to be in the dead center of one.  Time to see if I was unseen as I thought I was...

We followed Blackout into the western half of the castle.  The earth pony carved swathes in the hallway’s flow as cleanly as a stone in a river, turning more heads than I thought possible.  Guards saluted him with as much respect as admiration.  I hadn’t noticed before—I had been expecting it—or perhaps he didn’t do it all the time, but Blackout moved with deliberation, with purpose, his steps as fluid as an open wind.  Perfectly controlled from the moment his hoof left the ground to the moment it returned to it.  No guard I’d met had that level of discipline, that utter mastery of their movement.

Violet’s gaze followed the motion of his steps, too, but we passed by a rarity—an open door—and that drew my eyes instead.  Or more accurately, one of the six ponies within it.  A Lunar Guard.  A unicorn surrounded by swirling, inklike tendrils.  Fifth door from the foyer.

Blackout followed the hallway until it opened up into a circular dome, ringed all around by smaller, less ostentatious doors.  The mural above us was not nearly as understated; neither was the ambient chatter.  There was one name muttered so often, I could only conclude its owner was either present in the palace, or about to be.  It had happened before, and with the same name.

Twilight Sparkle.

It was a name I knew from my times in Canterlot.  The two words lit up the city as brightly as any star, both in liveliness and in rumors, and this time only had one difference.  There was another word, repeated nearly as often as the name.  Apotheosis.

Yet more hallways branched off into a network I’d only heard of.  Blackout took a look around, then led us to one of the small doors on the dome’s long wall.  It was marked with a pair of criss-crossed, faintly-red lightning bolts.  Interesting.

He pulled a small key from nowhere and opened the door.  Inside was not, as I was expecting, like a hotel room, but like living quarters.  There was only one bed, but there was, oddly, a pair of clouds floating by the window.  A barren bookshelf sat next to the doorway, an empty desk next to that, and a modest lavatory next to that.  Blackout ushered us inside.  “Make yourselves comfortable.”  He waved down a passing pony, a dirty-blue-grey earth pony with a three-toned cerulean mane and a silver pocketwatch on her flank.  “Make sure they’re fed, when you have a moment.”

The servant nodded and scurried off.  Blackout turned to leave.  “I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished.  See you two later.”

He gave Violet the key and left without giving either of us a chance to respond, which was fine by me.  I couldn’t say the same for Violet.

“Ehm.”  She frowned.  “How does he know what my magic does?”

“He didn’t say that,” I noted.  She just looked at me.

“He...doesn’t have to.”

“Oh.  Right.”

“I wish I could turn it off,” she grumbled.  “There’s so much I’d rather not know...”

I left her to her mental wanderings and made use of the lavatory.  It was rather odd; this wasn’t a hotel room, this was someone’s living quarters.  But it was so...barren.  There was nothing extra at all in the bathroom, no shampoos or soaps, although judging from the clouds by the window, they might just prefer conducting their business outside and using rain to shower.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were all covered in dust.  There was literally no sign that anyone had lived here for months, maybe years—the servants must keep it clean just for its own sake.  It was just the right temperature for the cloud to be stable, too.  And there was the pair of lightning bolts by the door...red lightning bolts, of all things.  The inhabitant’s cutie mark.

Violet was sprawled out on the carpet when I emerged, staring at the blank ceiling.

“I never thought I’d be in here,” she said quietly.

“What, in this room?”

“No.  In the palace.”  She paused.  “This room’s pretty weird too, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“I dunno.  Everything.”  She got up and waved at the walls, pacing back and forth.  “Nopony’s lived in here for a while, no idea how long, yet it’s spotless.  And as far as I can tell, nopony besides the servants have been in here since then...”

“Except us.”

“That’s just it!  Why us, and why now?”  She stopped beneath the clouds.  “And—hey, wait a minute...”

“What is it?” I said sharply.

“These two clouds—these clouds should be shooting lightning between them.  I’ve seen lightning storms before...”

Wha—wait.

No way.

Violet backed up as I approached the clouds and laid a hoof on each.  She was right.  These two clouds were fit to burst with electricity.  There was only one reason they wouldn’t have discharged...but that reason...

“Violet.”

She jumped.

“Look at the water vapor.  Tell me if there’s a spell.”

Violet’s eyes glazed over with her magic.  She didn’t say anything until her nose was in the cloud.

“Th—there is,” she breathed.  “But it’s small, and...it’s been cast on each droplet seperately.  How...?”

The rest of her musings fell on deaf ears.  A rushing icy numbness stole any control I had over my physical being.  The room and everything in it drifted wildly in and out of focus, swimming into blurred splotches of vivid color and returning to razor-sharp clarity and back again.  One of my hooves brushed against the cloud, a bolt of red-white lightning blazing between them in response.  My legs turned and carried me out the door, bringing my eyes to the faint-red, double lightning bolts for the second time.

No.

Freakin’.

Way.

But there was something else, more important...we’d been set up.

This was no coincidence.  Someone knew.  Someone had to.  It wasn’t Violet.  It couldn’t be.  She would know more if she did.  And it couldn’t be Blackout, or he would’ve shown some sign of knowing me, however small.  No...

But...no...I...wait.

That only left...

“Hello,” said a voice behind me.

My tail whacked Violet in the head as I whipped around, finding myself face-to-face with three ponies.  I knew all three of them, but had only seen two in the flesh before.  Eve looked markedly less disgruntled than the last time I’d seen her.  Blackout was as impassive as ever, if a bit stiffer than usual.  But the presence of either was dwarfed by the monstrously imposing presence provided by the flowing, ethereal, navy-blue, star-speckled mane that belonged to Princess Luna.

I reeled into Violet a second time, stumbling around her at the open door.  There was no time to escape, no place to run, and no way I could fight my way out.  I knew that already even if my legs didn’t; a pure-white lightning bolt blasted the door shut before I could make it through.

Well, if it was time...then it was time.  Deluge wouldn’t leave Whimsy out in the cold, I was certain, so even if I couldn’t fulfill Descant’s request, my real job was done.  Slowly, carefully, I turned, resigning myself to the night I always knew would come.

Not one of them had moved an inch.

“Come,” Luna said, without a trace of emotion.  “We must speak in private.”

Blackout had cut swathes through the palace’s traffic.  Luna negated it entirely.  Nopony dared stray within twenty yards of her—nopony except for the small troupe following her.

It was with limited comfort that I noticed that Blackout and Eve stayed at Luna’s side, in front of me.  If they were arresting me, she’d station the other two behind me.  But then, this was the goddess of the moon.  There was nothing I could do that she couldn’t counter...

Oh for the love of Celestia.  I never would’ve entered the castle.  I’d’ve bolted as soon as they opened that door.  If only I was thinking straight.  If only...if only I had a chance, just one, to...

...sleep...

        ...maybe...

                ...then...

                        …sweet...

...oblivion...

— § —

“I’m fine.  She hardly weighs anything.”

“Don’t touch her wings.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer if—”

“No.”

“...Of course, your highn—Princess Luna.  Where—”

“There.  On the cloud.”

I felt myself being set down, gently, into the velvet dunes of a cloud, but there was no wind and no smell of any other weather.  A cursory wiggle revealed that I was not bonded.  Not physically.

Okay.  I reexerted control over my breathing, keeping it long, even.  A door closed somewhere nearby.  The sound of hooves on carpet shuffled past, followed by the tink of a ceramic something being set down.  The scritch-scratching of a quill and a wooden click-clacking whiled away my lingering drowsiness.  If they wanted to torture me, they would have tied me down.  If they’d arrested me, I’d be in a cell.  Who puts carpeting in a cell?

No, I told myself, keeping my breathing steady and turning drearily onto my side.  There’s only two explanations.  Either they’re going to execute me, or they need me alive.  For...something.  Like an execution.

Let’s just get it over with.

I wiggled free of the cloud, landing silently on the carpeted floor, noting the presence of both my—still charged—bands and my goggles.  My saddlebags were, unsurprisingly, gone.

I was in someone’s study.  The room itself was laid out like two overlapping circles, one much larger than the other.  Bookshelves lined every inch of wall and vanished in darkness high above me.  Modest crystal lamps sat every few yards along the wall.  Very understated.  Tables full of odds and ends, most of which I’d never seen before, cluttered the center of the main room.  Among them was a few canvases, some paints, and a small harp.

In the center of the auxiliary room was only a desk.  Luna was behind it, a stream of papers flying silently above her, glowing silver as she poked at a small, wooden frame holding a series of colored beads.  Behind the flying papers was a window through which the moon was visible.  Luna frowned briefly at a sheet of paper and adjusted her glasses before she finally noticed I was awake.

She set the papers down—taking extra care to do so neatly, I noticed—and trotted over to me.  She might have been smaller than her sister, but she cut an imposing figure nonetheless.  Perhaps a more threatening one than her sister, too, given the whole Nightmare Moon incident.

“How long was I out?” I said brusquely.

Luna just stared at me.  Not so much as a twitch of an ear.  If she was caught off guard by my candor, she didn’t show it.  Her eyes—the only part of her that wasn’t blue, black, or white—were this stunning turquoise that were hard to look away from.  There was an air of mystery behind them, and her.  No one, maybe not even Celestia, knew what those thousand years of solitude had done to her.

“Just the night,” she said evenly.  ”Shock, hunger, and sleep deprivation can do that to you.”

There were plenty of rumors of Luna speaking in more force than sound.  She was restraining herself, that much was clear, but even so, I felt the air ripple in light shockwaves at the sound of her voice.  If she ever yelled, the sonic explosion would decimate everything within fifty yards at least.

“What am I doing here?  Why am I here and not in a cell?  Or dead?”

Luna sighed.  “Because the Calamus has instructed you to come here.  Because Ms. Violet asked us not to.  Because my sister has painstakingly manipulated our meeting into happening.  But most of all, Zephyr, because your mother was one of my best captains, and best friends.”

My jaw dropped.  Holly, friends with Luna?  Princess Luna, the moon goddess and twin ruler of Equestria?  It couldn’t be true.

“Prove it.”

She eyed me for a moment.  Her horn lit up with silent white lightning, and she levitated a thin chain from her desk over to us, a small circle dangling from it.

“I believe this is yours now,” she said, offering it to me.

I took it, turning the golden coin over in my hooves.  There was no denying it.

It was Dad’s.

I’d hardly ever seen him without it.  The only time I saw it not around his neck was when he was asleep, and that was only because Holly insisted, so he wouldn’t choke.  Yes...this was his.  It was a legitimate coin like any other bit in Equestria, except for one thing.  Right there, smack dab in the middle, was a perfectly circular hole.  Singed around the edges and all.  The only evidence that Holly wasn’t another of Dad’s fabrications.

I couldn’t deny it.  Luna had Dad’s necklace, knew it was, by inheritance, mine.  The two clouds in the bedroom had been enchanted by Dad—he was the only one who knew how to alter clouds like that.  He was the one to discover how.  So that meant the two lightning bolts by the door...

“Auburn Bolt, known to most—by her own preference—as Holly,” Luna said quietly.

“She wasn’t my mother.”

For the first time, I saw an emotion twist Luna’s features.  Sadness.  “I am sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“No.”  Her gaze dipped momentarily.  “Her absence was my doing.  She was never around because there was always work for her to do.  Work I couldn’t entrust to anypony else.  ”

I harrumphed.

“Holly was my best captain,” she said softly.  “When the time for her to leave my service, I was more than sorry to see her go.”  She drew a breath.  “Do you know how my the Lunar military operates?”

I shook my head.  I hadn’t encountered enough Lunar Guards on my excursions to know.  Though, come to think of it, I’d hardly ever seen any significant number of Lunar Guards in the same place...

“My sister’s operates on principle, and on schedule.  If you cannot take orders, you cannot be a Solar Guard.”  She paused, a slight bitterness entering her voice.  “My sister is very good at chess, but she has no use for pawns that do not live by her guidance.  I do.”

She walked over to one of the myriad tables.  The door was just over there, but...no.  I had to...Holly.  I’d seen her only once in my fillyhood.  Just where were you?

Luna lifted a canvas depicting a wolf howling at the moon.  “You know the story of the lone wolf.  We have rules, and orders, yes, but my best soldiers are the ponies who can think for themselves.  Ponies who do not accept orders without question, and if it is necessary, who can perform without them.  Ponies who know rules are rules, not laws of physics.”  She smiled warmly.  “Holly fulfilled all of those requirements.  I lost count of the number of times she disobeyed direct orders to save lives.”

She trotted over to me and tried to lay a hoof on my shoulder.  I flinched reflexively, but she completed the gesture anyways.

“But she was more than a soldier,” she said quietly.  “She was an artist, in her own way.  Did your father ever tell you how he met her?”

I shook my head again.

“There was a freight train, transporting unstable crystal explosives for safe disposal.  She heard about it last-minute and volunteered to escort it.  Minimize collateral damage if the worst came to be.  But...” She smiled lightly again.  “Your father had stowed away.  He wanted the crystals for his own experiments, wanted to discover why only some crystals can store magic and remain stable.

“Blueprint himself, though—bless him—was not stable.  Not on a moving train.  They were passing through a forest when the train took a sharp turn, and he stumbled into a barrel.  It would have killed him, but he pushed it out the door before the crystals’ chain reaction fully detonated.”

I found myself seething.  This did not explain why Holly had never been around.  She couldn’t have served in the military forever.  And where was Violet?  Blackout, Eve?  And that servant who was supposed to feed us?

“The car he was in was made of an aluminum alloy, strong enough to withstand the shrapnel that hit it.  Holly had a harder decision to make.  She had a split-second to decide which shrapnel to strike down; the shrapnel headed for her, or the shrapnel headed into the forest.”

I froze.

“She only needed a tenth of time.  She kicked enough lightning out of the cloud she was on to vaporize—excuse me, sublimate—even the shrapnel she missed, but a lot of it hit her right hind leg.

“Blueprint saw her fall, knew it was his fault.  He threw himself out of the car and caught her with magic.  She was out cold and losing blood, and they were hours away from any civilization.  Without proper teleportation training, he had only minutes to come up with a plan before Holly bled out.

“He did.  He took what magic he could from the remaining shards, and used it to gather all the water he could find.  He used the water to flash-freeze Holly into a solid block of ice.”

She smiled, fully this time.  “Your father, the pioneer.  Only took him a minute to recall the connection between body temperature and body’s natural functions, and hypothesize something that saved Holly’s life.  If the body’s functions slow when its temperature is lowered, then theoretically if you dropped the temperature low enough, you could halt the body’s functions—including the heartbeat.”

I nodded.  That was Dad, all right.  Almost too smart for his own good.  Almost.

“He had to drag the ice block along for days before he found a hospital, and he stayed in the hospital for another week before she regained consciousness, but it worked.  Holly survived.”

“Did she thank him?” I asked curiously.  If she had, then perhaps she wasn’t as bad as I thought.  Silence can destroy so much...

Luna actually laughed this time; the lanterns’ light flickered at the sound of it.  “After she finished punching him in the face, yes.  She never quite fixed that habit.”

I grinned.  That was the Holly I had hoped she was.

Luna gently plucked the necklace out of my grasp.  “That’s when she gave him this.  Tossed a coin fifty meters up and shot a hole clean through it with lightning.  ‘No amount of magic or science can replace that kind of accuracy,’ I believe is what she told him.”

She returned the necklace.  A small glimmer of hope flickered inside me.  Maybe, just maybe, I could forgive Holly.  Maybe, just maybe, through whatever magic the Calamus wielded, I could talk to the mother I never had.

Luna—Princess Luna—let go of me and entered the labyrinth of tables again.  “There’s something besides those bands Holly left for you, but it is neither my place to tell nor my gift to give.”

She said the last sentence forcefully, with finality.  I caught it.  Don’t ask.  I pushed what Holly could’ve left for us out of my mind.  There was something else I needed to do.

“L—Princess Luna?  Where’s Violet?”

“Just Luna, please.”  HAH.  Take that, Whimsy.

Luna opened the door with a bolt of magic.  “She’s been waiting for you.”

“Finally,” said a voice from the open door.  “Goddess be praised.”

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake,” said another voice.  “Can’t you shut up?”

Violet edged into the room, quivering, but when she saw me standing she practically flew into me, soaking my fur with tears.  Sweet Celestia, get me a raincloud, stat.

“Yeesh,” I said, peeling her off of me.  “That worried?”

She nodded, nose still in my side.  Blackout and Eve entered the room, arguing.  The former had his hood down, revealing him to gold-and-amber eyes, an tousled, barely-white mane, and a coat the color of almost-black smoke.  Eve wasn’t wearing her armor, either, and with a clearer look this time, I saw her cutie mark.  An odd, black circle with wisps of white curling around it.  Interesting. Presumably, apparently, and thankfully, Luna didn’t place much value on ceremony.

“So she was worried, big deal,” Eve said.  “Give her a break.”

“Why?” Blackout grumbled.  “I’ve got things to do, places to be, but noooo, Violet refuses to let me do my job until she knows little Ms.—”

“Tchhh,” hissed Eve.  She threw another twilight shroud over us, muting our conversation to anyone outside.  “What did we talk about?”

“—little Ms. Assassin over there is fine,” Blackout completed quietly.

I bolted upright, knocking Violet to the floor, but it was inconsequential.  Eve and Luna already knew.  Blackout had to as well.

“Calm down,” he said.  “We’re not going to arrest you or anything.”

“Why not?”  I demanded.  I already knew Luna’s reasons.  What were his?

Blackout glanced at Luna, who waited for Eve to close the door before she spoke.

“Descant asked you pass through the Calamus in order to discover why dragons are going extinct.  He believes it to be the departure of Lucifa.  Am I right?”

“How—?”

A thin smile spread across her face.  “If you must know how, then allow me to say this.  If he had asked the same of you before my return, the shrine would have been inactive, and your journey would have ended before it began.”

“So you...you...”

“The Calamus is fueled by more than magic,” she said quietly.  “At its core there is something that a pony like my sister will never understand.  It cannot be manipulated, tamed, analyzed, harnessed, generated nor terminated.  In this manner, I am connected to it, and it to me.  Perhaps Descant mentioned that the shrine is, in a way, a remnant of Lucifa?”

I nodded.  “I think so.”

“When she still walked this land, the power the Calamus contained was beyond mortal understanding.  When she left, it was diminished.  Accordingly, his race slowly succumbed to base desires and instincts, reducing them to little more than grandiose, gem-encrusted beasts.  Her connection to the Calamus is what sustained them—a connection that I, but not my sister, possess.  While I was...away, the Calamus was nothing more than a shapely rock.”

I rubbed my head.  “So...what does this have to do with me not getting arrested?”

“Let her get there,” Blackout said calmly.

“The Calamus is far from the only thing held in stasis during my absence.  My sister is a capable leader, but she lacks the spirit of an artist.  Creativity.  Inspiration.  Imagination.  Artistry.  These are foreign languages to her.  Without those elements, it was all she could do to hold Equestria in stasis for a thousand years.

“All of those powers accompanied me upon my return.  A thousand years’ worth of mental wanderings, of ideas, dreams.  Nightmares.  A millenium of progress crammed into an instant.  It has since become our focus to absorb and redistribute these advances such that the world does not consume itself through progress.

“But change is inevitable...even for me.  All we can do is slow it.”  She took a breath.  “Your parents were, among many other things, part of the first generation in centuries to be children of the night.  Those who came before them, for a thousand years, knew naught but the day; for most, the return of my night shook their world apart, and if it were not for my sister’s...actions, they might have chosen an early departure.  Your parents were among the few who embraced my return.

“There is no knowing if the draconic race will survive the onset of progress.  However...there is, as I’ve no doubt you’ve deduced, a chance.  Blueprint was also the first since my exile began to rediscover the latent abilities of earth ponies.  Some believe that those powers hold the key to saving the dragons.  And there are some who would expose or exploit those abilities.  Needless to say, such actions are unacceptable.

“This is why you remain free, Zephyr.”

Uh.  “Not following.”

“Seven of your targets were said kind of pony,” Blackout said quietly.  “ Until now there was no reason to reveal ourselves to you; you can imagine how ponies would react if they knew their own government was...irreversably silencing a few of them.”

I nodded wordlessly.  This explained a lot.  Namely the reliable work and sizeable payouts.  But both were always different, random.  These were ponies that kept to the shadows, and rightfull yso.  The secret of earth ponies could, after all, do worse than level cities in the right hooves.  “So why now?”

“Deception is no longer an option.  We cannot, excuse me, hire you if it we don’t require an assassination.  There is something that Blackout and Miss Horizon believe you can help them—us—with, and I have to agree.”

“It’s about Dust, isn’t it?”

Luna raised an eyebrow.

“Tan earth pony, lime green eyes, brown cloak twenty-four-seven?”

“How’d you know?” Blackout said, half-astounded, half-aggressively.

“I saw her.  Twice.  Both times she brought to bear magic that both doesn’t resemble anything I’ve seen, and doesn’t seem to adhere to the same laws that any pony magic follows.  Not even earth pony.”

“Ah yes,” Luna said.  “I noticed the amnis paries had vanished.  Perhaps you also saw her signature construct?”

“A giant, glowing, back-mounted bow?”

Luna nodded.

“Aye.”

“What do I have to do, if it isn’t kill her?”  Please tell me it’s simple.  I already have the Calamus’ backlog of quests to deal with.  Not to mention that without knowing her abilities and limits, her habits and tendencies, trying to subdue her would be about as suicidal as diving to the lightless bottom of the ocean and expecting to survive.  Unless you’re the luckiest bastard on Earth, there isn’t much of a chance you’ll bring the right things.

“I don’t know.”  Luna raised her gaze to the ceiling.  “She’s been at the site of every known dragon death in the past three years.  She’s leveled a gryphon village, excavated a crater in the side of a mountain, smashed historical monuments, ponynapped several ponies—all of whom were unable to speak coherently even months after release—and sown needless death among the outer wilds, creatures and plants alike.  If you want hard evidence, Blackout would be more than happy to oblige.”

“So why am I not killing her again?”

“You know the magic earth ponies possess.  The amount in her possession is astronomically greater than that of any other earth pony.  Not only that, she wields it.”

“Hm.”

“Perhaps you’ve heard of Discord?”

“In passing.”

“The spirit of chaos.  The kind of being that cannot be allowed free in Equestria.  When he was last disabled, he was encased in stone, not killed.  My sister even dared release him with confidence he would reform.  As far as I know, he has.  You of all ponies know, no creature is without virtue or merit.  No matter how senseless they seem.  No matter how much pain they produce.”

She carefully met my eyes.

“No matter how much death they deliver.”

“I do,” I said quietly.

“Then speak to her.  Discover what drives her.  With the right push, she could very well reverse draconic extinction.”

It made sense.  That didn’t exactly coincide with Descant’s requisition though.  “Hm.”

“One last thing.  The secret of earth ponies.  You have thus far kept this secret.”

A touch of venom tainted her voice.

“I trust you will continue to do so.”

“I won’t.”  Not that I have anyone to tell.

But no matter how hard I stared, no matter what tells I looked for, I couldn’t tell for the life of me if she was satisfied or not.  “Pray my sister does not have to intervene.”

I doubled over as a jolt of pain twisted my insides, my gut practically roaring.  It was impossible to miss, but not entirely unexpected.  Hunger was something I was more than used to, but it wasn’t something I could ignore forever.  It had been stabbing at me since I woke up, but like any pony, the maladies of flesh can be slighted if the mind is sufficiently stimulated.  Holly.  Dad.  Dragons, now Dust.  Things that were just beyond my comprehension, tantalizingly close yet so far.

Luna eyed my stomach.  “Before you go—Zephyr, you are in no way, shape, or form, bound to fulfill my request.  I merely trust you will.”  She met my eyes carefully.  “You are very much like your mother, and she stopped at nothing to do what she thought was right.”

She bowed courteously and ushered us out the door, speaking only when the last of us had crossed the threshold.

“Arbiter.  Horizon.”

Blackout and Eve turned around, both utterly devoid of emotion.

“Take her with you.”

Blackout nodded curtly and motioned for Violet and I to follow.  Eve did too, lagging behind to close the door and dispel her twilight shroud.  Dawn’s sunlight rippled softly through Luna’s half of the castle, lending the blue and purple decor a brighter feel.  The light felt more visitor than invader, but it still blinded me whenever a Solar Guard trotted past.

“What did she mean?” I asked, but Eve silenced me with a sharp glare.

“Not here,” she muttered.

Which left us in mostly silence—the palace was still mid-transition, so there was little ambient noise.  I was used to Eve not speaking much, and there wasn’t much of a reason for me to talk.  Violet seemed no more inclined to break the silence than jump out a window, though I noticed her eyes were still glazed over with magic.  But Blackout had been moderately talkative last night, which was somewhat worrisome.  Where were they taking us now?  And who was Blackout supposed to take with him to...whatever?  Violet or me?  Or somepony else?

“This way.”  Blackout led us down a noticeably longer hall, decor shifting from night to day.  Halfway across, he stopped at an empty stretch of marble wall and pressed his ear against it.  After a few moments, a quick jab coaxed a short blade from his boots, and with it he tapped out an uneven rhythm.  Whatever was behind the wall made a series of metallic clicking before a part of the wall retracted itself into the ground, leaving a small archway barely tall enough to fit through.

“Quickly,” Blackout said impatiently, pulling a stunned Violet inside before anyone spotted us.  The wall quickly resealed itself, and ahead of us was a short passageway that led into another room.

“Sorry,” I said as my stomach had another small fit.  “I—”

“Haven’t eaten?  Yeah, we noticed,” Eve muttered.

We entered what appeared to be a small, sparsely furnished dining hall.  At the far end was a window, looking out over Equestria.  The view was obscured by layers of glass and a massive set of bronze gears, the largest of which rimmed the vaulted ceiling only to disappear beneath the floor.

“Seat yourself.”  Blackout rolled his eyes; Violet and I had already plopped ourselves down onto the carpet.  “It should only be a min—”

The sound of gears crunching interrupted him, and within seconds two ponies appeared, pushing a tiered cart full of food and drink.  Given one of the ponies behind it, I figured it was probably excellently prepared with only the most meticulous of care, but sweet Celestia.  An actual meal in my immediate future.

“Thanks, Ju’,” Eve said.  “Now I don’t have to listen to intestinal earthquakes anymore.”

“No problem.”  Julienne—also devoid of her armor—curtsied and took a seat herself, plonking a salad down in front of her and digging in.  But...why?  Why were they both here?  Unless...she was here, too.  Circles within circles...

I frowned, remembering something.  “Eve, uh...did they...did you...?”

She sighed.  “Yes and no.  I confided in Princess Luna.  She told the unit the same once she was convinced we had accepted that some measures, like the ones you take, are necessary.  You have nothing to fear from us.”

“But don’t expect us to protect you,” Blackout said sharply.  “They can’t know—”

“I’m basically in government employ?  Yeah, I figured.”

“So,” Julienne said cheerfully.  “Z—S—wait, what are we calling you now?”

“Whatever you like,” Eve said slyly.  “Nopony can hear us in here.”

“Awesome.  Oh no you don’t!”

With surprising speed, Julienne reached over and plucked a snowy-white ferret off the food cart.

“Dangit, Caesar, you just can’t wait, can you?  Here.”  She pulled another plate from the cart and set both of them down next to her.  “Your favorite.”

Violet twitched in revulsion as the ferret buried its head in the mound of meat, and even I couldn’t suppress a small shiver.  I couldn’t really fault anyone or anything for killing to survive, but still...

“Wait,” Blackout said suddenly, and the second pony—who had been quietly slinking towards the door—stopped in her tracks.  “Take a seat, have a bite or two.  You haven’t taken a break in days.”

The pony—the same blue-grey earth pony from last night—hesitated, eyeing all of us warily, but she eventually cantered over and lowered herself onto the ground next to Blackout.  “Thank you,” she murmured, pulling a plate of honeyed carrots towards herself.

I shot Julienne a sharp glare.  She had been trying to introduce me to the new earth pony, but...what was she going to call me?

Blackout—unnoticed by the new pony—mouthed something at Julienne.  She can’t know.

Eve winked at him.  She can forget.

“Anyways!”  Julienne took up a pitcher and doled out glasses of water, sliding them across the table with practiced ease and immaculate precision.  “Syd, this is Violet, and—”

“Jetstream,” Violet prompted.

“Nice to meet you.”  I held out a hoof, which Syd stared at momentarily before shaking it.

“Clepsydra.”

She returned to her food  There wasn’t much I could talk about, really, besides her odd name, which she probably got enough crap about.  Except for maybe her voice, which was so wispy it’d vanish in the wind for sure.

I wandered over and found an apple rose with a half-peanut-butter, half-caramel blob in the center, hiding behind a fruit salad mound.  As delicious as the dish was, I couldn’t place what kind of apple they were.  They were crisp, clean, like Fujis, but they were less sweet and more tangy.

“Lady Alice,” Julienne said.

“What?”

“They’re Lady Alice apples.  Bit hard to come by, but there’s nothing quite like ‘em.”

“No,” I said around a mouthful.  “There really isn’t.”

I stuffed myself with as much as I could without overeating—who knew when I’d get another chance to eat, never mind a proper meal?  They hadn’t seen fit to return our saddlebags—wait.  No, not now.  Not while Eps is here.  It has to wait.

And then there was that other thing.  Eve had been with a group before, and they’d been following somepony.  If it were just Eve, it’d be an odd coincidence that she was here now.  But with another member here, that could only mean...

Eps stood up and returned her emptied plate to the cart.  “Thank you, Julienne, but I really should get going.”

“Already?” said Julienne.  “But—oh, all right.  Take care!”

“You, too.”

I frowned as soon as the door sealed itself behind her.  “She didn’t stay long...”

Julienne sighed, setting her—unfinished—plate aside.  Her ferret—who could only be Caesar, I had to assume—had already emptied his plate, and promptly skittered onto her head.  “She never does.  I have yet make something good enough to keep her around for more than two minutes.”

“Consider yourself lucky she stayed this long,” Blackout said curtly.  “She’s got more important things to worry about.”

The chef folded her legs crossly.  “Like what?  Running errands for everypony under the sun?  When’s the last time she took a day off?”

Something occurred to me, something I’d forgotten to ask Luna.  Lucky Eve and Blackout would likely have the answer too.  “Why me?”

Eve shrugged.  “Zephyr, no pegasus I’ve ever seen could pierce a hailstorm as fast as you did, let alone with nothing but a few bruises.  And you’re an assassin, but you saved Mer’s life.  It’s like Luna said.  Everypony is something worthwhile if you know where to look, and from what I’ve seen, you don’t hesitate when it comes to doing—doing what you think is right.”

“No,” I muttered, banishing the sudden visual of a falcon vanishing in the distant sky.  “I don’t.”  Not anymore.

“That’s rare,” Blackout said quietly.  “Too many hesitate.  Far too many.”

Indeed.  “Too many have the freedom and the luxury to be indecisive.”

He nodded.  “That’s exactly why I asked Luna if we could bring you in.  Your line of work—you do all your thinking preemptively.  Game starts, you move.  Thinking takes too long.  All you have is instinct.”

“And no red tape, thank Celestia,” Eve grumbled.

He was right.  Braving lightning storms to escape guards, diving for the depths with a swarm of arrows whistling along behind you, evading steel death by the skin of your teeth—a nanosecond of hesitation, of indecision, of uncertainty.  That was all it took.  A nanosecond for and of the end.  But instincts can be honed, altered, learned.  And in all fairness, I owed a lot of my learned instincts to Whimsy and her wild imagination.  “You sound like you’ve been there,” I noted.

He shifted almost imperceptibly.  “No comment.”

There was silence for a long while.  Sunlight trickled across the carpet, stomachs grew fat and happy, and for once, Eve seemed at ease.  Blackout was quite the opposite.  He kept glancing out the window as though he expected a zeppelin to come crashing into it.  He hadn’t said anything about taking Violet to the observatory since Deluge dropped us off, but he...he...

“Wait just a tick.  That pony.  May, Dust, whatever.  She’s coming here, isn’t she?”

Julienne grinned.  “That’s the other reason.”

“What?”

“The other reason Luna agreed to bring you in.  You put two and two together and five minutes later you’ve got trigonometry.”

“...What?”

“She’s saying you can make insanely accurate deductions with only a few random facts,” Eve said.

I shrugged.  “Comes with the job.  Gotta make do with what you have.  Like...last time I saw you guys, an earth pony asked you to keep up the good work.  You in particular, Eve, didn’t seem to pleased to hear that.  Then the pony shows up again, and you guys—you guys know her habits, you know she can speak in dragon tongue, and you aren’t surprised when she materializes and fires herself out of a spectral bow.  You were tailing her—only now you’re here. And Blackout has some task that takes precedence over the Calamus’ directive, only he can’t’ve finished it or he’d be taking me and Violet to the observatory, and he obviously isn’t working on it, so it has to be something he has to wait for.”

Blackout and Eve looked at each other.  Their expressions were nearly identical, swimming from amazement, to worry, then concern, with a heaping helping of uncertainty to finish.  Eve’s was probably because the one day I’d spent in their company had, despite all her efforts, told me so much.  Blackout’s...not paranoid.  He was just exceedingly cautious in who he gave his trust to, which was smart.  I could go from asset to serious threat in the shake of a tail.  Killing to survive meant killing for food as much as it did killing in self-defense.

“Yep,” Julienne quipped, uncharacteristically grave.  “That’s why.”

I knew what they were thinking.  “Look, guys...”

“No.”  Eve stepped in.  “Talk all you want, but we can’t pretend you aren’t potentially a lethal risk.  We just can’t.”

“Same way you can’t fully trust any one of us,” Blackout added quietly.

I pulled Dad’s necklace off, dangling it so they could see.  “Luna gave this to me.  You know what it is?”

A creeping snake of emptiness wound itself around my insides.

“It’s a gift to my father from the mother I never knew.”  I paused.  “And Luna gave—returned it to me.  I know she could be manipulating or deceiving me, but everything she said fit with what I know, and more importantly, manipulation is not her game.  It’s not her style.”

“True enough,” Julienne admitted.  “Princess Celestia did instruct us to listen to Princess Luna.  If she thinks Princess Luna knows what she’s doing, then she definitely does.”

Eve nodded in silent agreement, but when Blackout looked up from his plate, his green eyes were streaked with black.

“I still cannot fully trust you,” he said, “and I expect no different from you.  To trust completely is to have blind faith.  You make yourself vulnerable.”  The corners of his mouth twitched.  “It’s why I’m not a Solar Guard.  I couldn’t stop questioning Princess Celestia’s orders.”

“‘She has no use for pawns that do not live by her guidance,’” I muttered.

“Precisely.”  The way he said it...no, there was something else behind his induction into the Lunar Guard.  Something besides his disregard of authority.  Something else barred him from it.

“You’re not really a Lunar Guard, though, are you?” I asked.  “Luna referred to you as arbiter.”

His etched frown grudgingly lifted itself into a thin line.  “Technically, no, I am not a Lunar Guard.  I am one of Princess Luna’s personal agents.  Currently, the only one.  She trusts me to make decisions that you would expect her to make.  Ergo, the Arbiter.”

“She blessed you, too.”  No question this time.  He had melted out of the shadows when we’d arrived, soaked and spluttering, at Canterlot.  A personal agent to Luna, the goddess of the moon, a spirit of the unknown, of darkness.  An agent that outclasses any of her other soldiers.  Two and two.

Blackout slid underneath the low table and disappeared without so much as tilting it, only to reappear in a swirl of smoke from the long shadows cast by the main gear.

“So she did.”

Naturally he wouldn’t’ve shown off if he didn’t think I had spotted his last shadow traversal, outside Canterlot.  No need for me to know about his abilities until the time we personally had to work together.  But he knew I saw it, so he could show off.  I didn’t reply.  To literally move through the shadows was the kind of thing Whimsy would love...

I winced as the sound of warping metal pierced and rumbled the air, an odd mixture of earth-shaking groans and shrill screeching; I reflexively stopped Violet’s glass before it overturned, then joined the rest in staring at the bronze gear.  It was still motionless.  The sound was coming from deep within whatever mechanism it drove, and it only kept getting louder.

“Should I be worried?” Julienne grunted, stifling Caesar’s desperate attempts at freedom, no doubt sent into panic by that unnatural clamor, the anguished wailing of bronze and iron and steel.  “I’ve never been in here before, I have no idea what that thing does.”

Eve frowned at the gear.  “Me neither.”

Blackout wordlessly approached the gear.  There was nothing, no twitch, no quivering.  No hint to its true...its true...

“Violet?” I murmured.

Fueled by full-fledged fear, I figured she would be seeing, but there was no hiding her piercing sight this time.  Right before my eyes, unrelenting light, purple and blazing, poured from hers, focused magic she could barely control, the pure force of it rendering her speechless.  A seed of fear twitched inside me.  She’d said it herself; she never knew how much she would see.

Violet’s shining supernova garnered the attention of the entire room.  It promptly lost it again as the gear’s mechanism continued wailing, then gained it again.  For a few moments we gave our necks a real workout, craning this way and that to see which phenomenon would yield first, and for what seemed like hours robbed of breath, neither did.

When the metal’s whining left our audible range and its groans had almost shaken the room to pieces, the gear crashed into motion with ponderous clangor and peal.  It only went as far as one tooth’s worth of rotation before stopping again and falling silent, but that was enough.  Through the gap of its teeth, what I thought was a window was now visible.

What lay beyond was blue and white, true enough, but it was no sky, and though it resembled the shimmering webs at the bottom of a pool, it was not water.  It couldn’t be.  The way it felt, the way it felt distant, unfathomable, and eternal, yet so near, so...personal.  The closest thing I could think of was the Calamus, but that felt like time was frozen, as though it was waiting for me.  This felt...this felt...uncaring.

The spectacle was almost enough to render inaudible the sound of the door opening again.  Eps cantered in, a clipboard clamped between her teeth.  She slipped past a still-entranced, light-spewing Violet unnoticed, mumbled a muffled excuse me when she passed me, and silently nodded to Blackout when she reached his side, staring into the blue.

“How’s it look?” he said without looking at her.

Eps set hoof on the gear and inched as close as she dared to the edge.  Blackout didn’t seem all that concerned she would fall, even when she poked her head over to look at something far below.

“About the same,” she said.  “Nothing.”  She scribbled something on her clipboard.

“Still?  But why?”

“Tar’ if I know,” she said.  “But Tia needs to know.  See you later.”

She left without further comment, pale-turquoise eyes fixed firmly on the door from the moment she turned.  No sooner had the door resealed itself that the gear ground into motion again.  Slowly, smoothly, it clicked back into place, the sky-like realm visible only as a thin line around the gear’s edges.  In hindsight I was kind of surprised I thought it was the sky.  It looked more like a thin-crystal lighting fixture.  Unnoticed by the others, Violet’s roving magic faded, as well.

“What was that about?”  Julienne looked more curious than alarmed.  Caesar had calmed down as well, nestled in her mane and brushing against her ears.

Eve didn’t reply.  She was still staring, transfixed, either at the gear concealing the sky-realm, or Blackout, who hadn’t moved.  Still unnoticed by the others, Violet turned to me, eyes normal again, and from her expression I knew she’d discerned at least something about the sky-realm’s nature.  Which left just her and Blackout who had any idea what had happened.

The Arbiter returned to his seat with a tiny frown on his face, still unwilling to talk until a rift opened next to him and a scroll shot through it, smacking him on the ear.  He caught it on the rebound, unrolled it, then dropped it just as promptly.  The parchment caught fire and was gone before it hit the table.

“She’s here.”

[A2.5] Up Here Lies the Way

Up Here Lies The Way

“Good luck.”

The kitchen door clicked shut, hiding Julienne from view.  Eve had us shrouded again, but with the exception of Violet, we had all agreed Julienne would be more hindrance than help on this kind of mission.  She herself shared this view, and agreed to take refuge in the kitchens instead, on the condition that she be filled in as soon as we were able.  Culinary finesse and—if I was right—a good knife-throwing hoof really wouldn’t be much use here.  The ability to see the limited truth was a different story, which was why I had been relegated the position of Violet-shover, as she was highly reluctant to leave the safe room.  Something about there being a dragon in the castle.

The next ten minutes or so were spent roaming the mid-morning palace, picking up what was left of the Caelum division.  Though she admitted it was more for threatsagainst Dust than Dust herself, Swan refused to be parted with her bow.  Meridian joined us nearly before we knocked on his door; Eve had barely reached the door when the captain flung it open, missing his hammer but regardless in full battle regalia.  His sister frowned disdainfully at the shining metal—would it make it harder for her to keep us hidden?—but she did not object.  Not one of them seemed surprised to see me or Violet.

It was weird enough being in the midst of so many guards, but it was even weirder now because, knowing the truth...in a way...I was one of them.  Another pony who served the sisters, just minus the armor, and via surgical removal of life rather than the altruistic protection of it.

Something occurred to me as we made our way to what Eve had assured us was the last room.  Crimson—thank Luna he wasn’t here—had been promoted to a station where he had no immediate compatriots, which meant, barring any new recruits, the Caelum unit only had five active members.  We’d already accrued Eve, Julienne, Swan, and Meridian, which left...Blackout’s sister?

The Arbiter stopped in front of a notably smaller door than the others we’d passed or opened.  Like the others, it bore a cutie mark.  A small blossom of fire, its heart already dying.  But unlike the others, Blackout didn’t even bother knocking.  Neither did Eve nor any of the others.  They just stood there, staring at the same, gilded phoenix knocker that adorned all the doors in Celestia’s half of the palace.

“What are we waiting for?”  Violet squeaked from behind me.

“Shh,” Swan said.  “She’ll come out when she’s ready.”

 And sure enough, within a minute the door creaked open.  A stone-grey, nearly-empty room lay beyond.  There was absolutely nothing besides the bare essentials and one, meditating, forlorn-looking, nearly-fully-armored Burnout.  A smoldering orange came to life as she opened her eyes to meet us.  The fire dancing atop the incense in front of her died as it lost her attention.

“Hey,” she said quietly, moving to join us.  “You guys ready?”

“Doesn’t matter,” her brother said; even without confirmation, the family resemblance was clear, if their names alone weren’t evidence enough.  “Let’s move.”

The pace at which we set off was markedly faster.  Blackout was still leading the way, but swiftly losing patience.  I was forced to carry Violet—to my great annoyance, as she was still wearing the silver ring—or leave her behind, and in the face of a pony with unknown power?  I would knock her out cold if I had to.  Her truesight was indispensable, never mind that, despite the fact one of the first things I’d done with her was strangle her, she trusted me.  That alone was evidence of her power.  She had seen the truth.  She knew killing her wasn’t something I wanted to do, but something I would have been forced to do.

A few hallways and a number of turns later, we arrived back in front of Luna’s study.  The princess was waiting outside, and unsurprisingly, she did not need Eve’s help to see through her shroud.  Blackout stepped through the shimmering barrier and nodded meaningfully at his liege.  “I am ready.”

Luna nodded curtly, and the two set off down yet another corridor, with Eve and the rest of us just behind.  I was somewhat comforted by the goddess’s presence.  Violet was anything but.

“Skkk,” I scowled at her.  “Hooves off the wings.”

The unicorn obliged, but she still felt like she was going to tremble herself to pieces.  She had done the same when she had seen me after I’d passed out, but I had expected that.  Separated from me for so long with only a couple ponies she couldn’t read for company.  But her shaking was more pronounced now, like her insides were freezing solid.

“Can’t you do anything?”  Eve grumbled at me.  “Mer’s armor is bad enough.  Any more and I might not be able to keep us hidden.”

A swift cuff on Violet’s ear and her trembling faded, proving that her fear had not yet smothered her reason, but she remained ever silent.  Dragons in the castle weren’t entirely unheard of, yet...no.  That alone couldn’t be it.  She lived in Everfree, for Celestia’s sake, and she had to know there was at least one dragon in there.  I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated on her shifting, on this one motion she repeated over and over and over—a two-part head-turn—and her real fear became evident within seconds.

She was afraid of Luna.

Princess Lun—no, damnit, Whimsy, she said it herself, leave me alone.

But...why Luna?  Was it something she saw in her, some remnant of the fabled Nightmare?  Was the mare bent on plunging the world into eternal night not yet vanquished?

Another turn and the sight of a colossal set of red-and-gold double doors drove the thought from my mind.  Luna stood before it, took a deep breath, composed herself, and at her command the doors swung open.  She entered Celestia’s throne room with Blackout at her side and the rest of us hidden close behind, courtesy of the only Lunar Guard present.

What immediately caught my eye was not the flowing, pastel mane of the Regent of the Sun, nor the notorious brown-cloaked mare—despite her lowered hood—at the foot of her dais, but that—not counting those beside me—there was only one other guard present.  A single Solar Guard , a pegasus, stood watch to the left of Celestia’s throne.  Curious.

Luna started forward and immediately the doors swung shut; simultaneously, Eve led us off to the side, along the curved wall.  Violet’s quivering subsided somewhat, and though she still seemed incredibly eager to put as much distance between her and Luna as possible, a soft purple glow touched Swan’s white fur.  Fearstricken or not, she was doing what she had to.  Hopefully she could glean more from seeing Dust than I could; regardless, I slipped my goggles on.  Nothing really changed, except for maybe Dust getting a bit dirtier.

“Finally,” said Dust upon seeing Luna.  “You took your sweet time.”

“Apologies.  A matter needed more ironing than expected.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve honed your time-wasting skills to a impeccably keen edge,” Dust said impatiently.  “A thousand years of practice and all that.  Now can we please get on with it?”

Luna didn’t bat an eye.  “Certainly.  Your plight, I fear, is because of my return.”

“So it’s true, then?”

“Of course,” Celestia said.  “The divine lay claim to many burdens, and whether gods are many or they are few, those burdens must be borne.”

“My sister went to great lengths to preserve the ponies’ belief in me,” Luna said quietly.  “Her efforts—and my reappearance—have provided me with sufficient faith, but I fear it is only just.  Darkness approaches.”

Dust waved her words away as though they were but flies.  It may have just been the light, but what looked like anger or jealousy flickered across her face.  “Yes, yes, I know, but it’s your fault I’m here to even—”

“No.”

A fourth voice entered the fray.  Blackout, still silent, grew stiff as the lone Solar Guard stepped forward, sunlight gleaming off her armor as brightly as any mirror.  But she didn’t get any further.  Celestia caught her eye and—in doing so—casually squashed her further attempts to speak before turning back to Dust.

“Live in the past, and you turn your back on the future.”

“Please,” Dust scoffed.  “It’s her fault.  She’s obligated to help.  I was raised by dragons, not morons.  I know how courtesy works.”

“My sister can no more control her nature than you yours,” Celestia said quietly.

“Oh, I’m sure.  So goes the tale of Nightmare Moon, or so I’ve heard.  But as you say, the past is past, and what we need is to secure a better future for all life.  We can agree on that, at least, yes?”

“That we can.”

Dust took a step forward.  Celestia’s guard almost did the same, but apparently thought better of it, and I couldn’t blame her.  Fear was, apparently, an alien concept to Dust, as was tact.  “Then explain why you two sit on your arse all day doing nothing while the entire race of dragons is condemned to extinction!”

Celestia remained distinctly unruffled by Dust’s barbs.  “The power of any god is but dust in the face of destiny’s will.”

Luna started to speak, but stopped before she said anything.  Dust was too busy grinding her teeth to notice.

“Curse you,” she growled, sounding oddly feral.  “Goddess of the Sun, benevolent ruler of Equestria, wielder of powers unknown.  Death consumes an entire race and...I think a rock would be more useful, honestly.”

“Even the tallest mountain falls,” Celestia said quietly.  “Nothing and no one escapes time unscathed.”

Dust said nothing.  Neither did either of the princesses.  For what seemed like the longest time, silence reigned.  Then, without so much as a bow or a lick of courtesy, Dust turned tail and made to leave.  She stopped only for a parting shot.

“I always thought you two were useless.  I’d hoped I was wrong, but I guess I was pretty dumb to assume history wouldn’t repeat itself.  Alas...”

She sighed dramatically, eyes narrowing, voice graver than ever.

“...Fate would have it no other way.”

And she was gone.

Blackout, for some reason, was shaking ever so slightly.  “About the best we could’ve hoped for.”

“I’m afraid so,” Celestia said.  She alone seemed perfectly unruffled by Dust’s final words; a small frown had creased Luna’s lips, and the rest of the room’s occupants, save for Eve, looked outright disgusted.  A deep air of depression had taken hold of the single Solar Guard; her head was drooping so far it touched her chest.  The bleakness was so potent that Celestia drew her in underneath one large, pure-white wing for comfort.  Blackout’s shivers intensified.

“If only we could tell her the truth,” Luna sighed.

“What truth?”  I said sharply, lifting my goggles.

She looked at me sadly.  “That the dragons’ council also believes we are to blame, and they have accordingly forbidden any Equestrian from setting hoof in Draconia on penalty of death.”

“Why can’t you tell her?”

Celestia descended from her dais.  “She would confront the council.  In the event it falls to violence—and I am sure it would—she would win, and they can hardly afford further losses.”  She stopped, towering, before me.

The princess was even taller than I imagined, her mane, with its many colors, seemed to swallow me whole, and despite her tender, comforting tone, she wielded an inexplicably dangerous air, like a candle’s flame.  Beautiful in ever-shifting motion, mesmerizing in subdued chaos, and but a breath away from reducing all it held near to ashes or worse.  I suddenly understood why she was as revered as much as she was feared.  “I regret our meeting could not be under lighter circumstances, Zephyr.”

I worked my jaw for several moments before words found their way out.  “I...dunno.  I’m not in a cell and I still have my head, so these are pretty light.  Relatively speaking.”

She smiled airily.  “I see my sister has had a word with you.”

A word.

A father buried in plans.

A train loaded with crystals.

A silent apology that started it all.

And an empty spot where a mother belonged...

Dad’s coin was warm to the touch, as though the lightning that transformed it still coursed through the metal, untouched by all it had weathered, unravaged by time’s dreary advance, unconcerned by all it had witnessed.  Unaffected by all it symbolized...

“You could say that.”

“I tried to keep it short,” Luna mumbled absentmindedly, and her sister chuckled.

“It’s quite alright.”  She tilted her head to get a better look at the young unicorn still lying on my back.  “Violet, welcome.  If I may be forthright...”

The unicorn understood instantly, and though she was still lying on my back, she wasn’t shaking as much as before.  Something about Celestia, perhaps, kept her fear of Luna at bay…

“It’s really weird.”  She slid off, landing neatly on her hooves.  “She was, like...glowing, in at least six different colors.  I don’t know what it was.”

The hint of a steel edge crept into Celestia’s otherwise kind tones.  “Do you remember which colors?”

“Um...white, green.”  Violet frowned and closed her eyes.  “Silver, blue, like ocean blue..and gold, I think?”

At the word gold, the Solar Guard shuffled her wings, and Celestia suddenly straightened, something vaguely like dull alarm flickering behind her eyes.  She turned to the guards assembled beside me.

“By now the Valkyrie knows your mission, but it has not changed.  Stay on the her trail.  You are to keep her alive and out of mortal danger.  You are not to interfere with her efforts.”

Every one of them bowed, even Eve, and when they spoke, they spoke as one.

“Yes, Princess Celestia.”

Blackout and the lone Solar Guard, standing off to the side as they were, did not acknowledge Celestia’s commands.  Naturally.  Blackout was no more subject to her command than any other pony, and the Solar Guard was not part of the Caelum unit.  But Blackout’s presence here was somewhat expected; he was Luna’s agent, and keeping him informed was linked to how good he could be at his job.  So what was the other Solar Guard doing here...?

All heads turned as the doors burst open, and Clepsydra walked in.  She was wearing the onion-scented saddlebags, which she promptly handed to me before turning to Celestia.  A familiar, bored-looking gryphon stood tight-beaked behind her, but he remained outside.

“Your Kindness?”

“Clepsydra.” Celestia said.  “An earth pony in a brown cloak will be by the front doors in five minutes.  Please take Gimbal and meet her there, then take them both to the Cartographer’s Wing.  I expect she will want a map afterwards.”

The earth pony nodded, bowed, and backed out, shutting the doors behind her.  Surprisingly, the bags still contained Descant’s scale and his compass, but by some miracle the onion stink had been purged.  More notably the dried fruit had been supplanted by a number of satchels labeled Gourmet Field Rations with short descriptors.  A neatly-written note was tucked between two.

I take offense to your desiccated blasphemies.

— Julienne

Swan noticed what I was doing.  “If I were you, I wouldn’t let Julienne see you with dried fruit again,” she muttered.  “She gets offended, and when she gets offended...well, let’s just say the servants spent several hours dodging knives and patching up the walls.”

“Duly noted.”

“Cut the chatter,” Eve interrupted.  “We’ve got work to do.”

That they did.  From the looks of things neither Eve nor Burnout could mass-teleport—doing it solo was hard enough—so they really had to keep on the ball to keep up with a pony who could literally fire herself over a mountain in less than a minute.  Or she came close, at least.

“Take care,” Swan told me.

“And good luck,” Julienne added.

“You too.  And...thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” they said in unison, before trotting out the door; their captain gave a small bow and did the same.  I caught Eve before she followed suit.  There was something I had to ask her.

“Eve,” I said quietly, and she stopped.  “If you guys needed my help, why didn’t you say so back in the spire?”

The look she gave me was uncharacteristically off; her normally dead pale-purple eyes were open wider than usual.  She almost looked sad.

“I would have if I could have...”

“My sister thought it best if we refrained until it was both unavoidable and necessary,” Luna said.  “What transpired in Timid Thunder’s spire met neither of those.  Thus far your work has been virtually immaculate—revealing ourselves may have broken that streak.  I’m sure you don’t want to give your...following any more evidence than they already have.”

Celestia bore down on me again before I could contemplate Timid Thunder; odd that Luna was the one scaring Violet.  Luna’s presence was like that of a lit fireplace.  Celestia’s was motherly, kind, sure, but there was always that undertone...one that spoke of merciless fury if you ever happened to get on her bad side.  That she was markedly taller than her sister didn’t hurt either, but when she bent her neck until her face was level with mine...

“I am sorry,” she said quietly.  “The storms you have endured are amongst the fiercest I have witnessed.  I know the strength of spirit it takes to remain as whole as you are.  But...please understand.  No pony could endure what you have and emerge unscathed, and what lies beneath your shields is but another storm waiting to happen.  Unleashing that is too dangerous to chance.”

As she spoke I felt something creeping through my veins, like a web of toughened vines, paralyzing me.  It wasn’t magic.  I would feel that.  This was...Celestia.  Pure and simple.

“I know.”

My voice sounded distant, like my mouth was at the far end of a long tunnel.  She was right.  There were some things I had never come to terms with.  Over the years I’d learned to suppress them for Whimsy’s sake, but if they ever broke loose...if they ever took me over like they had...well, just look at what happened, and that’s why I could never again surrender myself to dreams of fantasy, no matter how intoxicating.  Just having them had taken an unforgiveable toll.  To see them fulfilled would be a lethal mistake.  A dream come true, indeed.

“I know.”

And even Celestia seemed at a loss for words.  She straightened up without breaking the silence.  Wonder how many she’d known that were in a position like mine...probably hundreds.  Immortality must be a real bitch.  Speaking of which...

“Um...Princess Celestia?”

“Yes?”

“You, uh...wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Lucifa, would you?”

Her expression lapsed into neutrality again, and for a moment or two we just looked at each other.  She had the most peculiar shade of pinkish-purple eyes.

“Unfortunately, no.  As Timid Thunder has probably told you, she hasn’t been seen in centuries.”  She caught my expression.  “Ah, forgive me.  You would know him as Descant.”

Huh.  So why would Descant have a name like that...a pony name?  And what was that shifting-metal noise, like somepony was taking their armor off?  Or rather, why was the Solar Guard behind the princess hopefully edging towards the door?

“Er...any idea where she could be?”

Celestia shook her head, but it was Luna who answered.

“Sadly, no.  The Calamus was her entry point into this world, and the last place she was seen.  If you want to find her, following its guidance is your best chance.  Yes,” she directed at a shivering Blackout, who’d just nudged her.  “Time is short.  I will meet you in the observatory.”

Blackout shook his head like he were drying it off, then looked at me.

“Let’s go.”

[A2.6] Through All the Dust and Deception

Through All the Dust and Deception

I followed him with Violet still on my back; she was still shaking, silent.  Curious that, of the two, Luna was the one sending her into panic mode.  She was the more amiable of the two, or at least it seemed that way to me.  Princess Celestia may be kind, warm, but she kept things and ponies at a distance.  Luna didn’t seem nearly as afraid of making close friends.

“I have to warn you,” Blackout said.  “Princess Luna’s observatory was built to very specific standards, and with an extraordinary amount of countermeasures to protect against intrusion.”

No...that wasn’t as weird as it sounded at first.  Luna’s sky was her magnum opus, her legacy.  Her child.  Just the same as I would do anything to protect Whimsy, she would do anything to shield her night sky from harm.  So I nodded.  “Makes sense.”

Blackout glanced out the nearest window, his smoke-colored coat lit up by the evening sun.  “Most of them have been layered into a gambit the princess likes calling her Garden of Shadows.  A test, formed by and sculpted out of stardust.”

“The dust dreams are made of,” Violet muttered absentmindedly.

“Garden of Shadows,” I repeated, trivially noticing that the cloud I’d woken up on was still floating off to the side.  “I like it already.”

“I hope you can maintain that sentiment,” he said cryptically before addressing Violet.  “I’m sorry if Princess Luna upsets you.  She tries, bless her heart, but there will always be scars from her exile.”

“It’s...it’s not her,” Violet squeaked.  “It’s...her mane.”

“Mm?”

“I...I can’t look away,” Violet whispered.  “It’s so beautiful, but so cold...it reminds me how small we really are, in the universe…”

She shuddered.

“I mean, we get caught up in life, living day to day, worrying about things that don’t matter, but to the universe...nothing we do matters.  It’s just...cold.”

Blackout and I looked at each other, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.  Every pony I knew, sooner or later and for better or worse, had gone through the same dilemma.  For any pony besides the princesses, there was no changing it, no bending rules, no avoiding it.  How they dealt with it defined them.  Some chose to ignore it, some tried to forget.  Some came to terms with it, and some poor, tragic few chose death instead.  I...I don’t know.

I guess I just pretended it didn’t exist, ignored the part of me that knew.  But there was that other part...the part that was unswayingly convinced that Whimsy could achieve the impossible.  That she could, in some way, in some bizarre, quirky, clever, Whimsy-only way...make a real difference in the universe.  Change it for the better.

That was her power.  That was her defining trait.  Not her blindness, not her illusions.  It was her imagination, as vast as the sea and as boundless as the sky.  Able to see that which is not and able to see in ways that cannot be.  She doesn’t accept limits, doesn’t obey rules, and that’s the key to breaking boundaries.  Limits, rules, laws, whatever...they’re nothing more than mental constructs.  How can you break a barrier that doesn’t exist?

I laid down and look Violet straight in her eyes.  “Look, Violet...Vi.  You’re right.  We’re tiny.  And—if my dad’s right—the universe is getting bigger by the second.  But...okay.  Imagine that we’re grains of sand in a desert, and everything we do moves that grain.”

She was tearing up now.  Wasn’t even bothering to try and hide it.  I wiped a tear off her chin; she had already soaked my fur with tears once.  As long as I got my hooves on a raincloud soon, I could get the salt out before it really started festering.  Ugh.

“That grain might not move much, but when it does, it moves every grain close to it, and when they move, so do all their neighbors.  See...when we do things, even something as small as cooking a meal, it shapes what happens later.  It might only be a meal today, but maybe that meal makes somepony’s day, and maybe it helps them have a flash of insight that brings something entirely new into being...it’s more than just something to eat now, isn’t it?  It’s something that can change the world.”

Through the single window amongst the towers of bookcases, a shaft of light from a dying sun bounced off the silver instruments on Luna’s maze of tables, creating a whole new daytime star system on the spines of countless books.  A single ray found its way to Violet’s eyes, and through her glassy eyes, her veil of tears, I saw a tiny speck of light come to life.  Once again I found myself with a coat soaked in tears that didn’t belong to me.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled into my chest, still crying.  “...It’s just so...scary...”

Blackout looked at me over her shoulder, speechless.  I couldn’t help a stupid grin.  For all his training...just like most stallions.  Stick a crying foal in their hooves and suddenly they’re clueless.  Half the time, the stuff they manage to stammer just makes it worse.

Time seemed to stretch like taffy.  Violet didn’t seem to want to move.  I knew we had to.  And even worse, Blackout’s awkwardness was starting to manifest as a flushed face, and despite all his discipline, his eyes were darting every which way, looking very much like he wanted to bolt.

 “Look, Vi...we gotta go.”

A cold draft told me she had finally managed to peel herself away from me, eyes red and swollen.  She seriously had to be near dehydrated, my coat was so drenched.  It was just a few tears’ worth before, but now….yeulgh.  It was all I could do to not try and rub the salt out.  Too long without a proper cleaning and the scent would take up permanent residence.  No thanks.

“I’m s-sorry,” she said again.  “It—I just—Sterling doesn’t—”

She chuckled weakly.

“Sorry for being such a crybaby,” she with a shaky smile.  “I know you don’t like getting your coat dirty.”

I waved it off, for her benefit.  “Nothing a bit of rain can’t fix.”

From the way the ends of her mouth curled upwards, I could tell she knew I was lying.  Of course.  She was lucky she hadn’t cried into my coat a decade or so ago.  The me in that era was far less...restrained when it came to soiling her coat.  But then, everyone has their pet peeves.  Things that just make them angry for no real reason.

Violet’s eyes were dry now, her thin smile more...eased.  The shakiness in her voice had waned, but wasn’t gone just yet.  “Rain can’t replace a feather if you pluck one out.”

I swiveled about, releasing my wing.  “I’ll have you know I’ve never plucked a feather preening, and I’m not about to start now.”

“Okay okay,” Blackout interrupted.  “If that’s dealt with, we really need to go.”

Violet wiped the last of her tears away.  “What?  Are we gonna miss something or...something?”

“Not really,” he admitted.  “But there’s parts of the Garden that are better during nightfall.”

“Better?”

“You’ll see.”  Blackout crossed over to Luna’s desk, picked up her beaded wooden frame, and shuffled the beads around before closing his eyes and reciting another poem.  He didn’t seem as bothered by this one.

“You’ll find it in the veil of night, where solitude is born

In the emptiness of a broken sky, at the mercy of the storm.”

The bookshelf behind him let loose an ethereal wail, a gaping maw of a portal opening right at the center.  Through it was mostly just pitch-black, but there was a ghostly, silver bridge made of light, spanning the breadth of a...something.  It looked like a river, but instead of water, there was just...sparkles.  Hundreds of sparkles, at least, flowing with and around each other in an endless, spirited dance, graceful, poised, like so many lightning bugs chasing each other.

Blackout stepped through, onto the black, and where his hooves should—stop it—have fallen through, splotches of the silver light appeared, preventing him from falling into the abyss.  He held out a hoof to help Violet through, and after some hesitance and a nearly-unnoticeable bit of her truth magic, she took his hoof and followed him through.  Likewise, little circles of soft moonlight kept her on solid ground.

“Wow,” she said softly.  “I...wow.”

I couldn’t help it.  “Um, Blackout.  Are you sure about this?”

“No.  But Princess Luna is, and so is Princess Celestia.”

Well, if it were a trap, he would’ve tried to get me to go through first.  So I set foot into the odd realm, and sure enough, discs of silver light formed beneath me.  There was still air here, and a warm breeze, curiously, and—unsurprisingly—the pitch black surrounding us was dotted with stars.  But even their beauty was eclipsed by this...river, full of sparkles as it was.  It was considerably wider than it looked at first, and it meandered this way and that, it extended, curling, until it was so distant I could no longer see it.  Odd.  There was no curvature of the Earth.

“Congratulations.  You two are now the among the dozen ponies, ever, to visit this bridge.”

I nodded at it.  “So how’s this a test?”

He pointed towards the other end of the bridge.  Just visible over the arched light was another portal.

“Cross.”

The instant he said it, Violet vanished.

“You’re on your own.”

And then he was gone, too, a fleeting puff of smoke in his place.  Interesting.  I got the feeling Violet was in her own instance of it all.  If all the tests were this way...then Celestia guide her, because if she doesn’t come out the other end, this would take a lot longer to resolve.  Whatever gambits the Calamus wanted to put me through...well.  It didn’t seem to have any reservations about putting me to work.

I poked the bridge.  It felt solid enough.  Just out of curiosity, I gave an experimental flap, but the air slid off my wings without so much as an ounce of resistance.  Unsurprising.  And it wasn’t making the tear-soaked part of my coat cold, either, but I was definitely breathing, and not dead.  Interesting, indeed.

So the bridge had to be linked to some part of me.  My love of the night, presumably, which wasn’t an issue.  Daylight was harsh.  Moonlight was not.  And, as I expected, the bridge did not fade when I set all four hooves on it.  It seemed straightforward enough.  But if it were a test, a trick question was inevitable.

And sure enough, despite nothing about me changing, no sooner than I had reached the halfway point, the moonlight bridge faded, and down into the river I went, headfirst, in a dazzling splash of sparkles.

I sank immediately.  It was chilly, but not uncomfortably so, and it wasn’t inhibiting me breathing at all.  Actually it felt like...like…

A cloud?

A storm cloud, too, of all things.

It was almost as if...no, of course.  Blackout hadn’t meant it figuratively—it was so obvious.  The sparkles weren’t stars.

They were stardust.

The stuff dreams are made of.

I closed my eyes, still sinking, and embraced their soothing caress.  The back of my eyelids almost instantly yielded to the overly vivid, heady euphoria of a dream...

A raging storm cast a long shadow over the Bluegrass Fields, pouring rain and spurting lightning like water from a leaky faucet.  She ever-so-gently squeezed my back, careful to avoid displacing so much as a feather.  I couldn’t resist a smile.  She had come so far—and now she was ready, too.

As I left the mountain’s cooled stone and took to the skies in a flurry of snow, I reached out and touched the wind, gently teasing it until it gave chase.  A proper tailwind.  I felt her wings brush mine, but even ruffled feathers couldn’t supplant this night’s beauty.  No, tonight...it finally happens.  After so long…after everything I’d been through.

We soared upwards until we were just underneath the storm clouds, and I took to gliding in a slow, wide helix with Ven at my side, to conserve energy.  Nothing to do now but wait.

All it took was a few moments before I felt the distinct crackle, fur on end and all, ever the warning sign.  I reached out a hoof, one last time.  She had time for but a single, piercing shriek of triumph before a forked, roaring, white-hot talon of lightning reached down from the aether and touched us.  Pain exploded, colors flashed before my eyes, and all yielded to darkness.

...Finally.

It’s either over, or it’s done.

Doesn’t matter which.  Not anymore.

Heady exhilaration lifted me up, inflated my lungs, draped itself over my mind like a soft blanket.  To finish...after so long...to find what I’d thrown to the wind and, perhaps, fly with that pristine, majestic creature at my side once more.  To share a stormy sky with her until we truly became one.  Oh, if only...if...

...only...

...if...

...only...

No.

I looked down, the ghost of an orange scarf resting on my hooves, fluttering in the wind.

No.

Two empty holes, dripping, oozing, dying a dirty-white coat a vivid crimson.

No.

The turn of a tail, the beat of a wing, the rush of a wind.

                                        No.

She faded to a speck in an overcast sky.

No.

And then she was gone, consumed by the great blue, and I knew, somewhere, that she was tasting the same sour bitterness as me.

                                                        No.

I twisted and shook my head until my brain felt like it’d turned into mush.  Lightning was arcing between my hooves, thunder and all, until I reexerted my will.  The energy retreated back into my bands without protest, and I drew several deep breaths until my innards returned to their proper places.

She’s gone, Zeph...she’s gone, probably dead, and you know it.  Stop poking the ashes of your gutted hope, they’re dead, they’re not coming back, she’s not coming back, and you know it.  You screwed up and there’s no turning back, no undoing what’s been done, and you know it.  You’ve known it since the moment it happened.

You...

...are not good enough.

                                        ...allowed happiness to get the best of you.

        ...let joy blind you.

...failed her.

I scraped the blood from my tongue and spat it out.  Hope is as vain as I am.

...Whimsy.

Just the thought of her returned a sense of peace.  She’s a constant reminder of my failure, a catalyst for my guilt, yes, but she’s also my gift to the world. The penance I’m still paying is my apology, too, but I doubt that’ll mean much to anyone.  What’s important is that little bundle of imaginative joy.  The only worthwhile thing I have left to give.

“You know that’s not true.”

The river was gone.  I was standing in the center of a spotlight, and just before me, the back of her cast in shadow, was Luna.  But two things momentarily stole my attention.  Whatever we stood on was blanketed in ghostly flowers that swayed in time with music that was echoing from somewhere off in the distance.

Luna’s gaze locked with mine, and somewhere in the blue-green depths of her eyes gleamed some tiny spark of sympathy.  It was impossible to look away.  And somewhere, the music kept flowing, building.  Maybe she understood...

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

She looked up.  Above me was a sparkling replica of Whimsy.  Accurate right down to the way she ties her blindfold.  A clean butterfly knot.  I was the only pony still alive who knew that, so it had to be a projection of my thoughts...

“Zephyr...come with me.  There is something I think you’ll enjoy seeing.”

And she turned away, splotches of moonlight glowing beneath her.  I followed curiously.  There was nothing but black around us but stars, yet the projection of Whimsy stayed, sleeping, floating.

But as we continued, faint objects and images welled up around us, mirages.  A massive clock made of glass.  A city encased in amber.  A twin set of mechanical wings, like a dragonfly’s.  A ring of multicolored orbs circling a candle.  A glacier in the middle of a desert.  And still, the music built, gaining more and more layers, chasing itself into intricate knots without end.

The mirages did not fade, and more faded into existence, like sunlight hitting fog.  Even above us, they congealed, skies littered with dragons right next to a patch of space, with a swirling galaxy, surrounded by a ring-shaped city made of stone.  And even those began to overlap, one over another, layers upon layers of colors and shapes that amounted to a...a...

Wait, how did she bring me here?

Or rather, how did Blackout open a portal that brought us here?

Luna came to a sudden halt, and every last mirage vanished.  All of them, except one.  Right before her was another flower.  A ghost of an orchid—which in itself wasn’t too odd, considering.  But it was all the phantoms that shone within its petals,, reflected in the flower’s center.  Alien creatures, machines that breathed, impossible landscapes.  A dark room with a solid carpet of what looked like tiny white rabbits.  An eight-headed dragon with a bell and garden on its back.  A small airborne island that kept breaking into pieces and reforming.  A tiny figure leaping from a sky-high tower.  A pony that appeared to have a snake coming out her head.  But...

Something remained constant.  No matter what shone in the flower’s heart, there was always a faint discoloration.  A faint discoloration that, were it not for its constantly shifting background, looked very much like my cutie mark.  I knew then what we were looking at.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

She glanced at me.  “Are you sure you don’t want to go in?”

I couldn’t resist a smile.  “I know what’s in there.  If I go in, there’s no way I’ll be able to find my way out.”

She returned the smile, then returned to gazing at the wisp.  “I’m sorry.  I forget not everypony is as apt at navigating these labyrinths as I am.”

“Pff.  That’s a labyrinth made of labyrinths.”

“A challenge, then.”

I chuckled.  “You’ve never seen one like this, and you know it.”

She brushed a fond hoof against the petals.  “True.  Your sister’s dreams are the most imaginative I’ve seen in a long, long time.”

We both watched the orchid in silence after that, but I couldn’t discern individual scenes anymore.  I could only see my cutie mark, marring every single one of Whimsy’s dreams...

                No.

Please.

                Don’t do this to me.

        I’m not worth it.

I shook it off and tore myself away from her kaleidoscope of dreams.  I had a job that needed doing, and it wasn’t going to wait around if I spent the next month drowning myself in self-pity.  No.  It was time to work.

“So, um...did I pass?”

“Yes.”

“Er...if you don’t mind me asking. just what—”

She met my eyes with her twin oceans again.  “It is a test of emotions.  If you still feel, and feel deeply, so deeply that your emotions can override every other aspect of you, then you retain that which makes my night sky the night sky.  That which makes it more than just work.”  She drew a deep breath and looked at her hooves.  “That the only thing separating a painting or piece of music from a work of art is the soul.”

The darkness began to recede, revealing a thick carpet, then a series of tables covered in astronomical charts.  A haphazard forest of instruments and a single shelf half-filled with books followed, then an easel and paint set, and finally a glass dome, beyond which the vast expanse of Luna’s night sky rested.

“The night sky is not my work alone,” she said quietly.  “Over the years I have found those who truly understand that the soul is what makes art.  You see...I am but a brush, and your souls, the paint.  So long as you feel, there will be a star in the night sky that is yours.”

“There is a star for every soul,” I murmured.

“Indeed.  Even those who do not feel, once did.  Starforging is a ritual I have observed since the beginning.  But...if you render enough services unto me, you may find there is more than one star to call your own.”

Since then...the beginning of time, or at least our time.  Luna had crafted a star for every living soul.  Explains why there’s so many.  But...

“What...what about Princess Celestia?  The sun?”

Luna closed her eyes.  “She was the first to forge a star, and my mentor in doing the same.  Once upon a time, she felt too violently...now her soul is all but muted.”  Sorrow tinged her voice.  “When I allowed emotions to override my reason, it became a sacrifice necessary to keep the world alive.”

Celestia...that’s how she survived a thousand years of guilt and regret.  She’d sacrificed her soul.  No...no.  Not sacrificed.  It wasn’t dead.  It was...

Abandoned.

“My transformation and betrayal forced her to enact her greatest fear,” she told her hooves, volumes upon volumes of a purified shame infusing her voice, a shame so potent and so deep it seemed a miracle she was able to talk at all.  “Princess Celestia drew upon the magic of the land, the Elements of Harmony, and exiled me to my moon.

“Of everything I have ever done, that alone stands as my deepest regret.  That I, in my pettiness and selfishness, forced my own sister to such extremes.  She spent the next thousand years with her own albatrosses of sorrow and regret slung around her neck, as a finely-crafted shell of who she used to be, and in order to keep Equestria whole, those are weights she must ignore.”

“...I’m sorry.”

Her eyes were as glassy as a stillwater pond at night, but no tears fell.  And slightly, ever so slightly, the corners of her mouth twitched when she looked back at me.

“Not as sorry as me.”  She paused, and there was a steely glint and a hint of iron in her voice when she spoke again.  “Rest assured, I will never allow my petty jealousy and overblown emotions to roam free again.”

We both jumped as Violet and Blackout popped into existence beside us.  The former seemed somewhat disoriented by her jaunt through the Dreamscape; the latter, almost bored—no, disappointed.  What’d happened to them?

It looked even worse when Blackout cantered to Luna’s side and spent several seconds whispering in her ear.  Violet’s apparent tenseness escalated.  Luna remained expressionless, although from the few glances I chanced, she was looking at me much more often that at Violet.

Admittedly the observatory boasted much less grandeur than I was expecting, but then, it was Celestia who was the organized, precise one.  Luna was more intuitive, artistic, and a heck of a lot more disorganized.  Except for that bookcase...I noticed then that an open book sat atop it, a quill and inkwell resting neatly on top.  Beside that lay another rack of colored beads.  Records.  But of what?

At long last Blackout stepped away from Luna, and the princess turned her attention to Violet.

“Violet...I believe it is time you learned just who your parents were.”

[A2.7] Stand Up, My Maker

Stand Up, My Maker

Luna produced a set of overly squishy cushions from seemingly nowhere and politely seated us all.  All except for Blackout, who’d faded into shadows at her instruction, only to return minutes later with a tray visibly sagging under a mound of cookies.  In a disarmingly motherly display, Luna refused to proceed until we’d all had at least one—chocolate chip, naturally.  To be fussed over by a goddess, though...I found myself taken by a strangely warm, relaxing feeling, and it wasn’t because of the cookie.

Comfort.

I looked around in a daze.  Comfort was something else I’d neglected, a luxury I couldn’t afford.  To have it would mean my guard was down.  Vulnerable.  And if I was, then Whimsy was, too...

But not now.  She was in Deluge’s care, and if not hers, then Descant’s.  I doubted the former couldn’t perform, but even if she couldn’t, the dragon would be more than happy to take excellent care of Whimsy.  He seemed to have little else to do besides sit around, these days, and his grandstanding was definitely not all bark.

And me...I may not have the guards on my side, but the few that posed a threat were certainly not against me.  Even here, in the company of Luna and her able assistant, in a place I could not escape from, I was safe.  Neither one of them would touch me—Luna wouldn’t unless I became a serious risk, and Blackout wouldn’t on her orders.  And with that came another realization...

...it was only me.

For once I didn’t have to worry about Whimsy.  Not directly.

It was a sort of release I’d never expected to feel.  Some invisible burden lifted, and it was...just me.  But after so long, just who exactly is me?  A stone-cold killer?  A familial protector?  A liability?

A warm fuzz pressed into my side, and I looked down to find Violet shivering against me.  Again.  No, it wasn’t just me.  It was her, and through her, Descant, and through him, Lucifa and the entire race of dragons.  What are you waiting for, Calamus?  Have I not ‘met’ Violet?  What other demands must I fulfill before I can take the next stride to finding Lucifa?

For the second time in as many hours, a slow trickle of music inched its way into the air.  A seamless melody flowed from the open end of a flute, Luna ushering through her many centuries of meditative thoughts and distilled emotions.  The overwhelming tone was that of crushing guilt, suppressing, the air turning thick with an eternity of torment that only Luna could know, accompanied by muted pangs of a hollow sadness and spirited trills that only sounded happy.

As Luna played on, white lightning curled around her horn, a magic whose rarity outstripped that of even Eve’s.  Bolts began to lash out at the curved glass overhead—and from their sharp, stinging smell and thundering backing, it was actually lightning—but they had no apparent effect.

It wasn’t until Luna’s song faded to a quiet end that, with the sound of space being stretched to its limits, the glass ceiling began to glow.  Then it flexed, and the universe grew large.

Violet gasped as a distant star rocketed towards us, making clear details as fine as individual flares, curling off into space only to return again.  It didn’t stop until it seemed but moments away from smashing into the observatory, blinding us with starlight regardless.  And at Luna’s beckoning, the view swept slowly aside until we were staring into the blackness of space.

“Humm,” Luna murmured.  “I knew it was around here somewhere...”

It wasn’t black for long.  The glass’s magic skin took on the slightest hue of red, and from the darkness of space emerged even more stars, little pinpricks of light, light that...that we couldn’t see before?

“What—?”

“Stars from those long gone,” Luna said absentmindedly.  “They have grown so far, so fast, that their light has stretched out of the visible spectrum.”

I could almost hear the swoosh as her words went right over my head; the only thing I could extract from that was that there were millions, if not billions of stars we could not even see.  “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Aha,” Luna said, as though she hadn’t heard me.  “Here we are.”

A number of stars grew bright, and a blue line stretched from one to the next, then the next.  It took but a moment for them to complete a rough outline of a flower.

“Your family has been in our service for too many generations to count,” Luna told Violet.  “Not forced, mind you, but it is hard to deny that your family’s...flavor of talents have a considerable number of applications.”

Violet shifted beside me, and I heard the quiet thrum of magic.  “Truth."

“A virtue as much as a vice,” Luna said quietly.  “And your bloodline’s specialty.”

I frowned, ignoring the chunk of ice that had lodged itself in my gut.  “Can’t be that many talents.”

“The truth is a many-layered thing, and never simple.  Construction, distortion, revelation, selection, manipulation, illumination, to name but a few.  All things you can do with or to the truth.  There is no shortage of related talents, I assure you.”

“Most agreed to continue the tradition,” Blackout added.  “We offered them a choice every time, but those that accepted, understood that the power they wielded could make or break the greater good.”

I said nothing.  It was Violet’s choice to make.

“So...” Violet began, but she trailed off as the starry flower suddenly coalesced, gaining a solidity that seemed all too real.  Or rather, half of it did.  The other half remained insubstantial, retaining the velvet black of Luna’s sky.  Slowly, carefully, the flower spun, until we were looking straight down at it from the top, a view distinctly more poignant than Violet’s cutie mark.  Wait a minute...

“Ebony and Ivory,” Luna said, pointing to each half of the flower in turn.

Uh oh.

“Obfuscation and illumination of the truth.  Your parents.  More than adept within their separate areas, but in tandem they were nearly unstoppable in the political arena.”  I caught starlight glinting off of Luna’s teeth.  “I doubt any mortal besides them could reliably tell who was lying and who was not.”

Blackout took up the narrative.  “Their official title was Celestial Envoy.  They were in Draconia trying to rally support to unify the Equestrian government and the Draconian council when they were ambushed by a number of dragons.  They didn’t want anything to do with ponykind.”

I have to tell her.

“Morons,” he added casually.  “We offered them an escort.  I offered to escort them.  ‘No,’ they told me.  ‘Every pony who knows how we work is one more liability.’”

I have to.

“We can but wonder what they might have achieved otherwise,” Luna said sadly.  “Perhaps, if they had been successful, we could play a larger role in the dragons’ recovery, but no other Envoys were willing to go after your parents were killed.”

I can’t.

“To persuade a dragon is task enough by itself; they do not think as quickly as ponies do.  They do not have to, which makes it all the harder to influence them.  But to fight them is a task as difficult as it is legendary.”

I need to get out.

Luna pointed up at the flower.  “They left their mark before they embarked on their last mission.  Sometimes I wonder if they knew...”

No.  No portal, no window.  No gaps, no cracks in the glass, no weak points.  Nothing.

“They might’ve,” Blackout said darkly, rising from his seat and cantering over to the open book.  “Here...they didn’t leave a name for their constellation, just a dedication.  ‘To Celeste,Selene, and Mirari.  May our faith forever be your power.’”

I can’t get out.

“An astral epitaph,” Luna murmured.

I have to tell her.

Violet shifted again.  “So were they prophets.”  It wasn’t a question.  As quietly as I could, I swallowed the blood I’d again drawn from biting my tongue.

I put her in a boat twice as leaky as mine.

She needs to know.

“More like clairvoyants.”  Blackout sat up, too, watching Violet.  “They weren’t, not really, but they had a sense that anypony’d mistake for the real thing.”

Violet reached a hoof to the stars, tracing the flower as though she could feel it.  “I wish I’d known them.  They sound amazing.”

“They were,” said Luna.  “But if a dragon wishes you dead, you would have to be able to thwart nature herself to survive, and even then you would suffer wounds that do not heal.  Miss Zephyr knows.”

“I do.”  My voice came out evenly, steady, betraying the storm tearing away at my insides, the truth desperately trying to make its escape borne on wings of honor, justice.  The scar underneath my wing tingled with phantom pain.  The truth...

        ...beautiful...

                        ...terrible...

...but not fast enough to escape Violet.  Something in my voice that perhaps only she could hear tipped her off.  She turned to me without sitting up.

“What is it?” she blurted.  “What is it?”

I ignored her and instead brought a question to bear, hoping, praying that my answer was wrong.  “Luna...that flower.  Please tell me it’s not a lotus.”

If Luna’d made any connections, had any revelations, it did not show.

“It is.”

On Violet’s other side I could hear Blackout breathing heavily, his mind undoubtedly racing.  Neither him nor Luna said a thing.  Violet stood up, towering over me, the silver ring dangling over my face like a hypnotist’s watch, eyes and horn ablaze.  I had occupied her spot more times than I could remember.  But her parents...oh, the irony.  The cruel, cruel irony.

“Violet,” I croaked, horror leaking, terrified of what retribution I was subjecting myself to.  They must have hidden her, abandoned her for her own protection, sheltering her from the danger of treading in their footsteps and repeating their mistakes.  And sheltering her from another, more imminent threat...

You smell like dragons...

And still the unicorn’s gaze kept on sharpening itself, innocent eyes shooting daggers, trying to read the truth I had yet to think.  The Calamus knew.  It had to.  My stomach had turned inside out, my mind slowly diminishing, frost creeping through my veins like a lethal poison.  I couldn’t budge even if I wanted to.

“Violet,” I repeated.  “Violet Lotus...”

She shuddered at her full name, but did not back down.  Revelation sparkled briefly in Luna’s eyes, and moments later Blackout’s, but both remained mute.  And just as well...

“...dragons didn’t kill your parents.”

Justice.  We meet at last.

“I did.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed.  She leaned in closer, her horn still on fire, searching, probing, pitting hope against all odds for a lie.  She found none.

I had to tell her, or she would spend her whole life silently suffering a delusion I’d wrought.  A fate I’d written for her.  The same fate Whimsy and I had spent most of our lives coming to terms with, the same empty future that left us blind and stumbling in the dark, hoping against hope we might find some shred of meaning to chase.  A fate robbed of guidance, of compassion, of sanctuary.  An unfeeling fate that had ripped the capacity to love right out of me.  And the one family member she had left, she didn’t even know about...

I closed my eyes as she regained control of herself.  I tried not to think about her chosen method of execution.  A swift death.  Prolonged torture.  I had taken so much more than life from her.  As long as she let Whimsy be, It didn’t matter what she did.  What I did in a week caused more hollowing pain than Violet could cause in a lifetime, and that pain never goes away.  The scars it etches in your flesh, your heart, your mind.  They never heal.  I was living embodiment of that...but not for long.

Shouting broke out above me, a storm I could not touch in a sky I could not see.  Scuffling.  The sound of magic.  Paper flying.  Cushions falling.  Words that meant nothing.  And that warm embrace of darkness...all is said and done.

Violet, if you can hear me, do me one favor.  Make it quick.  Whimsy doesn’t need to know I suffered on my way out.

Nothing touched me.

                Nothing.

                                        Nothing.

                                                                        And...

Nothing.

“Blackout.”

Luna’s voice sliced through the din and forced my eyes open.

Blackout was struggling to break free of two things.  Violet had pinned most of him with her behind, a feat made possible by a ring of Luna’s magic binding his hooves together.  The unicorn’s eyes were slightly puffy, red, and they shone with tear-refracted moonlight.  The look she was giving me was a lot less vindictive than I was expecting, but it was several far cries from forgiving.  Blackout wore the expression I was expecting instead.

“No,” he grunted, trying to throw Violet off, and not having much success without the use of his legs.  “She killed Ebony and Ivory.  In cold blood.  She deserves it.  Get off me.”  He finally heaved Violet off of him, but still couldn’t move.  “I swear to Celestia, Zephyr, I will stuff a knife in your skull if it’s the last thing I do.”

“No, you won’t,” Luna said sharply.  “‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’  Death is not the answer.”

“No, but it’s a reliable cure-all,” he spat.  “Violet!  She took your parents from you.  She forced you to live in that orphanage, alone and exposed.  She—”

“Shut up.”  Violet slapped him, leaking tears.  “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

And when he had fallen silent, beaten into silence by a clumsy unicorn barely out of fillyhood, Violet turned to me.  She was too young, bereft of the discipline that masked Luna and Blackout’s thoughts and emotions.  Vengeful wildfires burned in her eyes.  She wanted to do it, and she didn’t want to.  How much could she see...?

“That’s enough.” Luna stood.  The motion was accompanied with a startingly loud wolf’s howl, and a maelstrom of shadows and lightning welled to life around her, stirring the observatory into motion.  The room itself breathed as she did, instruments played melodies of their own accord, the ceiling bowed and flexed, rippling with the raw volume of Luna’s voice.  Black vines of smoke escaped through Blackout’s fur, twisting through the air, returning to Luna.  “You may have it back when you stop letting emotions run you down a path with no redemption.”

She released him, and he fell limp, staring forlornly at his still-bound hooves with a weighty, profound sadness.  “Yes, Princess.”

It was clear from his tone that he still wanted to kill me, but—presumably—without his shadowwalking, he’d have a much harder time of it.  Violet had all the rights in the world to kill me, but if Blackout wanted me dead, he’d have to win the fight of his life first.  Bring all the blades you like, ponyboy.  All the more lightning rods for me.

“Zeph...”

Violet was at my side now, no longer standing over me, but she managed to be scarier this way than when she was staring me down.  There were so many emotions written in her face that I couldn’t pick one from another.  Sadness, fury, peace?  No righteous fury could be scarier than the terror of not knowing how she would react.

“How could you?  How...?”

“You already know,” I said miserably.  “Money.”

“I know it’s more than that.  I know you’re more than that.  But how...?”  She drew a shuddering breath.  “I mean, who?”

“Descant,” I said.  “Timid Thunder.  No, I don’t know why.  I don’t ask.  But if you see him again, he has your parents’ necklaces.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.  “And I know you need the money for Whimsy, but...honestly, there are a bajillion other ways to make money.  Or get it.  No,” she said suddenly, before I could respond.  “You enjoy it...”

“It’s a challenge,” I muttered.  “Believe me, I didn’t have a whole lot of options.”

“Bull,” Blackout said; Luna silenced him with a sharp glare.

“She’s not lying,” Violet said.  “I can see that much.  But what could happen that would make you—?”

I sighed.  “Long story short.  Whimsy is blind because of me.  But she has so much to live for.”  Deep breaths.  “I couldn’t let anything happen to her again.  Her wings are too strong to pinion.”  Deep breaths.  “She relies on illusions to keep her out of trouble now, but she didn’t always have that skill, and one time, I...one time, I got carried away.  I didn’t know they had a foal,” I added.  “Your parents...Ebony and Ivory.  They knew I was coming.  They abandoned you to protect you.”

Violet paused, tears glistening, shining with a mixture of moonlight and the purple glow of her magic.  She spent several moments hmming, and the same moments saying nothing.  Blackout and Luna hadn’t moved.

“So that’s why you have those goggles?”  Luna asked curiously.  “A vaccine for your sister’s venom.”

I nodded.  “Hoofmade by Dad once we knew.  He took to calling themmoongoggles.  You know—”

 “—because sunglasses are for when there’s too much light, and moongoggles are for when there’s not enough.  To reveal what is real and what is not.”  She smiled thinly.  “I like it.”

Silence.

Silence.

Crickets, far below.

Silence.

Hoots of an owl.

And...

...silence.

“Zephyr....”  Violet looked as forlorn as she looked pleading.

“I’m sorry.  I—”

“Just...just don’t stay near me.”  Her voice cracked.  “I don’t know what I might do to you...”

Something tugged at me.  The Calamus.  Already?

“What?”  Blackout smirked at me.  “Not going to pull the I’m just a tool card?”

I glared at him.  “No.  I had a choice.  I always have.  A bow or a blade does not.”

“Oooh, you do have honor—ow!”

“I’d shut up if I were you.”  I leaned close; Luna still had him bound.  “Violet can kill me if she decides to.  You are going to have to fight me first if you want me dead.  I wonder how brave you are without your powers?”

For the first time I saw fear flicker behind his eyes, and it was no mystery why.  He’d had his mastery of shadows for so long, he’d taken them for granted.  He’d forgotten what it was like to fight without that gift.  I couldn’t resist a smile as I watched his facade of strength wither and vanish, the shriveled horror of vulnerability taking its place.

He knew.  It’s why he was so scared.  Manual combat skills don’t help you against a tornado.  Bring a blade, and I have an easy conduit to electrocute you.  Bring a bow, and none of the arrows will ever touch me.  Good luck, kid.  Good luck.  The only way it could be more decisive is if I could control lightning like Holly could.

Even if Blackout had his powers, he was the one who wanted me dead, not the other way around, so he had to chase me.  And there are no shadows in the sky.

He started thrashing again.  “You—”

A swift punch to the face ensured he stopped just as promptly.  Luna released him once she had checked to see if he wasn’t faking unconsciousness; I hadn’t hit him hard enough to break anything.  Luna gave me this look.

“Er,” I said.  “Sorry.  I—”

Luna waved me off.  “No apologies.  He is a pony like any other, and he will lose control like any other.  If he has to be beaten to remind him of his shortcomings, so be it.”

Weightlessness started to take hold, and of Violet, too; she drifted ever so slightly off the floor.  Luna glanced at the sky, then back at us.

“Go,” she said.  “I will ensure he leaves you alone.  He forgets just how much damage the disrupted divine can cause, and Lucifa forged the rest of us.”  She brushed a hoof against the prone Blackout.  “I know his pain, but she does not wish you dead, and he would be a fool to oppose that.”

Luna rose and met my eyes.

“Are you not upset because you didn’t like them, or—?”

“I told you, the Calamus and I have deep connections that are not of this world.  I did not know, but I had my suspicions.”  She bared her teeth in a half-smile, half-grimace.  “The bloodshed of vengeance is a cycle that takes far too much time to end.  And there is nothing to be gained by imprisoning nor torturing you but the bitter taste of illusory revenge.  I know you do not kill for greed or personal gain, Zephyr, and to enact revenge for that is to punish an attempt at survival, and a noble attempt, at that.”

She took a breath.

“But what you must understand is that Lucifa made all of us.  She made me, my sister, the Shaman, dragons, Equestria, the Everfree, Cloudsdale, Canterlot, even Discord—she is not called the Mother for nothing.  And look at where we have been led by her guidance.  Equestria has become a utopia that has endured, unscathed, for hundreds of years.  Our prosperity is so abundant it has quite literally bled into Draconia, Saddle Arabia, Italony, Haven, Atlantis.”

“So you do as it wills.”

“In short, yes.”

I pursed my lips.  Following the wordless orders of some giant rock had seemed crazy enough, but to learn now that the same rock guides both princesses?  They didn’t seem insane...

But then, that rock had reunited me with Dad.  And he loved him some plans...but to what end did this plan lead?  Lucifa’s fate?  The revitalizition of dragons?  Everything that had happened since the  dance of the stars had to have connections outside of Lucifa’s will.

Deluge had been an odd sort of connection.  Violet’s connection hit all too close to home...the Calamus was pairing me with every participant in the last dance, but for what?  My connections to Descant, Whimsy—those were obvious.  What about Sterling?  And why did Dust keep popping up?  What was so special about her?

“Violet.”

Luna had trotted over to Violet’s other side.  The unicorn had laid back down, facing away from me, but she wasn’t crying.  Not audibly.

“I hope you find it in yourself to forgive Zephyr.  She meant you no harm.”

“Means,” Violet corrected.  “She means me no harm.  She—she almost strangled me earlier, but that was because she couldn’t let me tattle.  She’s had all day and all night to hurt me if she wanted to, but she doesn’t.”  She sniffled.  “But...”

I almost apologized again, but she already knew; knew I was sorry that I’d stripped her of the same comforts that I had been denied.  Sorry that I’d dumped her in the same bleak pit that I’d found myself in.  Sorry that I might have just turned her into me...what else could I say?  Nothing I could say or do would bring Ebony and Ivory back.  Just like Holly...

“No,” said Violet, without turning around and with more than a touch of defiance.  “I will not become you.”

“I—Let’s hope not.”  As vain as hope is, no one...sigh.  No one should have to suffer like I did.

The observatory again seemed to take on a life of its own; paper fluttered, instruments played, and there was spiraling wind in an enclosed room.  Luna spread her wings and rose to stay level with us.  She was emitting an aura of raw power, and at the same time I was vaguely aware of the Calamus’ tentative tugs.

All of it happened through a dull haze; I had robbed Violet.  An innocent filly.  And for what?  To keep Whimsy alive?

The vice on my stomach tightened further.  Whimsy, you’d better make your life count, because I’ve taken too many just to keep you from an early grave.  And Violet...

“Violet.  Your...you have a relative.  Crimson.  He’s a Warden now.  Princess Celestia could tell you where he is, and—and—tell him I’m sorry.”  There was a chance Violet wouldn’t tell him, but I couldn’t see her keeping it secret.  Why would she?  Problem was, he was exactly the kind of hotheaded, emotionally-dominated pony that wouldn’t rest until he enacted his vengeance.

Violet turned to face me for the first time in as many minutes.  Her eyes were still puffy, pink, and glossy with tears, but her voice was even, neutral.  Please, no...

“I will.”

She turned back; already I could feel her growing cold, banishing emotion, exiling the very thing that fueled the soul...becoming me.

Luna floated towards her and lifted the silver ring.  “Violet, if you want to learn exactly what this is, the pony you met in my sister’s throne room knows better than anypony.  I would expect she also knows where Descant resides, if you wish to retrieve your parents’ necklaces.  And if you would ask, I cannot imagine he would withhold his reasons for arranging your parents’ deaths.  Least of all from you.”

“Thank you.”

Luna turned to me.  “And Zephyr...after tonight I think you know what has yet to transpire.  Lucifa’s truth will continue to evade you until you have accepted yourself for who you are; it is a belief she held most dear, and as long as you shelter that storm, you will never find her.  The method you need to quell said storm is something only you can discover.”

I bristled.  “I’m fine with who I am, thank you very much.  I don’t need to be anything else.”

“I daresay you’ll find yourself wrong.”  Luna closed in, eyes alight with a strange fervor that was neither anger nor compassion, neither “There is a problem your sister needs your help to solve, and it cannot be solved if you remain in your current state.  I know no more than that.”

“Hmph.”

Luna rose into the air.  “Farewell, Zephyr, Violet Lotus.  Moon’s blessings be upon you.”

And before either of us could answer, we were once again whisked away to the distant stars, leaving Luna to her duties and Blackout to his little snooze on the floor.

[A2.8] The Past Holds No Sway

The Past Holds No Sway

There was nobody else with us in Limbo this time.  Just me and Violet...and we couldn’t even look at each other.  There was nothing I could tell her that would make it up.  She saw straight through my apologies, and however sincerely I meant them, she knew there was no real emotion to back them up.

I was sorry for putting her through that kind of pain, sure, but everyone suffered something traumatic eventually.  So she would grow up a little sooner.  Big whoop.  Deal with it.  And that was the problem...if I felt even the tiniest bit repentant, she would forgive me.  That was Violet.  She was young and untarnished, and she clung to the belief that there was a heart of gold in everypony like it was her only lifeline.

And it was that lack of remorse that was the problem.  It was punching all sorts of holes in her core beliefs.  She thought I was, at heart, a good pony...or she had.  I’d turned her insides into the kind of storm that can drive a pony insane...I had spared her, I spared every innocent I could, but I had killed her parents.

Violet didn’t have a practiced mental fortitude.  She didn’t have years of experience nor a surplus of willpower.  That was another problem.  She saw too much.  Without truesight, my earlier threat would have shut her down completely, in fear of a death but seconds away.  Yet she’d seen it wasn’t something I wanted to do...but now she knew I killed Ebony and Ivory in cold blood.

There was a million different snags she was going to hit.  Was I just a semi-intelligent tool, and Descant was at complete fault?  Did I really have a choice in the matter?  Should I have let my morals override what Descant—or more importantly, my employer—wanted done?  Did I really know better than him?  Or did he know better than me?

Who was really to blame?

Nobody accuses an executioner of murder...

“Zephyr...tell me one thing.”

She still hadn’t turned around.

“Tell me how you did it.  How it happened.”

Of course...it was hardly an old memory.

“Descant requested my audience.  I owed him a bit of a favor, so I obliged...”

The bubble’s surface swelled with a discordant chorus of crackling.  A thin layer broke off into what looked like glass shards, the pieces scurrying across the bubble’s inner face and shifting between color after color.  Within moments they had recreated the scene in its entirety, all from my memory; slivers and chunks of the scene were missing altogether.  Things that I hadn’t seen, hadn’t heard...things I couldn’t remember, weren’t there.  So naturally I was there in perfect detail, with every hair and feather in place and with my platinum-rimmed goggles fit snugly against my mane.

“...two Celestial Envoys by the names Ebony and Ivory.  They are attending the dragon council being held in a month’s time, in Klastos Tephra’s crater.”

“The usual?”

“A recent incident has left my funds lacking.  I will find a suitable substitute on your return.”

“Proof?”

“Their amulets will suffice.”

“Done.”

Descant, his spire, and the sky twisted again, this time reforming into bits and pieces of one of the Palace’s inner courtyards.  Ah...

I remembered this vividly.  It’d taken weeks of reconnaisance and planning to find a way past the almost-swarms of guards in restricted areas, never mind actually staying unseen long enough to eavesdrop...but then, what kind of pony would pin herself between a pillar and the wall, just below the ceiling?  It helped that the window had a pegasus just a few shades of blue darker than me, though I had to raise an eyebrow at her rainbow mane.  Really.

“...caution,” Princess Celestia was saying, muted but not severly through the stained glass.  “I have several volunteers willing to escort you.”

“With all due respect, your Kindness, that won’t be necessary,” one of the two said.  They were strangely similar given how greatly their talents differed; if I had never seen both of them, I’d’ve thought it was a dupe crafted by just one pony, a la Whimsy’s Smoke and Mirrors.

“Please,” said a new voice...or an old one.  I just hadn’t known it then.  “You don’t need to risk it.”

“We’re not helpless.”  The other’s voice was tinged with just a hint of irritation.

“No, but you aren’t practiced in combat either.”

“Do we have to be?”

“Oh for—in the name of Harmony will you take someone with you!?”

“I’m sorry, Blackout.  Every pony who knows how we work is one more liability, and you’d be hard pressed to protect us if we exclude you from our plans.”

Blackout’s grumbling was loud enough to rattle the windows; I guess some part of his gift also gave him Luna’s volume.

“Fine,” he grumbled.  “But if you get killed or captured it’s all on you.”

“A necessary risk.”

“Is not,” Blackout muttered under his breath.

“Let them be,” said another new but old voice.  “They have made their decision.”

There was silence for a moment.

“As you wish.”

“It is done, then.”  Celestia’s voice was followed by the sound of doors opening, and there followed another voice I hadn’t known then.

“Princess Celestia.  Princess Luna.  If I may...” began Clepsydra.

Celestia sounded amused.  “Miss Syd.  You may always.”

“Gimbal has kindly requested an audience before you depart, and Allumette has supplies for both legs of their journey.  Salad bars and fruit jerky, or so I’m told.  They’re both in the Cartographer’s Wing.”

 “Kern’s going to have a fit,” groaned someone with a distinctly nonpony and actually new voice.  Too smooth to be a gryphon, not resonant enough for a dragon.  Who...?

“He will not,” one of the two said.  “The worst he’ll get is a dried plum on his records.”

“You’ve clearly never been on the wrong end of his tantrums,” Blackout chipped in.

“Have you tried not jumping him while he’s refilling his quill?” said the other.

“Have you tried getting his nose out of his books?”

A pony I could only assume was Clepsydra laughed—it was too gentle, too airy to be anypony else.  “Have you tried better books?”

I frowned; this was too clear, too detailed.  I didn’t remember all of this...and there was only one reason I could think of that would cause a reconstruction to have more detail that the memory itself had.  But there was no evidence of it...

And of course, that’s when the memory transitioned in a twist to colors and sounds to another one, this one more recent.

The night winds ferried in tufts of snow through the mountain cave’s maw, the ice settling on chilled stone, my pelt, and almost on a set of gleaming red scales.  The flakes melted and vaporized before they could come to rest on Scordatura, a dragon I’d found leering at Ebony and Ivory as they’d crossed the border.

When Scordatura and past me finally broke the silence, the discussion came out as little more than a garbled mess.  I couldn’t remember our exchange very well, but the gist of it was that I needed him to provide a distraction.  Something to get the dragon council—which was apparently more like every dragon on the continent—to look the other way for a couple minutes.

But then there were a few words that made it through.  Scorch, his infinitely preferable nickname, Melisma, a quiet, politcally neutral dragon who volunteered to transport Ebony and Ivory up and down Klastos Tephra’s treacherous side.  And poison—I had spent a good while explaining why my methods pointedly forwent its use, and he had spent a good while passive-aggressively reprimanding me for it.

“It would be my pleasure,” Scorch said clearly, and I knew what he meant.  I’d offered him favors, money, even gems, but he’d refused all of them.  “And my honor.”

Another twist later, and we found ourselves atop a cloud, leagues above Klastos Tephra’s crater.  I was watching the council progress, waiting for them to adjourn, for that tiny window when Ebony and Ivory were vulnerable; as soon as they drew near the border, I could no longer pick them off without being seen by the guards standing watch there.

There was just one thing that caught my eye this time, that hadn’t before.  Somewhere in my memory was buried one detail of the convention that I couldn’t consciously recall...right underneath past me, isolated and ringed by row after row of dragons, was a tiny speck.  A speck which, if it was no illusion, if my memory had not failed me...

...looked very much like a pony wearing a hooded brown cloak.

Dust?  Here?

Hm.

Their proceedings hastened as past me got bored and started tossing a puff of cloud around, and within moments they were breaking up and returning to their homes.  I turned away from the memory, and from Violet.  I knew what happened next.  The storm, the dive, the strikes, the flight, and the storm again.  The end.

Then there was me, returning two necklaces to a green-scaled, golden-eyed dragon.

And then there was just us.  Me, and Violet.  Tears dripped silently from her chin, falling into the abyss, her eyes locked onto the spot where Ebony and Ivory had laid, one draped over the other.  The spot where they’d breathed their last.

And with nothing short of agonizing deliberation, she turned to me.

I met her gaze.

There were no words.

[A2.9] Here in My Garden of Shadows

Here in My Garden of Shadows

“You’re not sorry.”

It wasn’t a question.  Nor was it entirely incorrect.

“I’m sorry for putting you through that.  Not for anything else.  I did what I had to, and I won’t apologize for that.”

“You’re not even sorry for that.  I can tell, Zephyr.  You can’t hide that from me.”

“I’m as sorry as I can be.”

“And that’s not sorry at all!”

Violet rounded on me, her eyes ablaze, her anger almost palpable.

“You don’t feel, Zephyr!  You just don’t!  You’re not sorry for killing them, you’re not sorry for putting me through that orphanage, you’re not—”

“I am sorry for putting you through that,” I said calmly, and honestly.  “I am, really.  I know how much it hurts.  The silence.  And what I put you through—it was twice as bad as what I went through.  I’m sorry.  Believe me, I am.”

“Even if I did, which I don’t, you still killed them.  In cold blood.  You didn’t even look back.  You don’t feel.”  She spat at my hooves.  “You’re a demon.  A cold, hollow demon.”

“I have to be.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“I killed,” I said quietly.  “I took a life for my little sister.  I valued her life more than theirs.  I purged emotion because if I hadn’t, I would have driven myself insane.  Was her life really worth more than theirs?  ‘Yes,’ I kept telling myself.”

I was pacing now.  I couldn’t help it.

“But that’s not true.  A life is a life.  I convinced myself otherwise.  I convinced myself that Whimsy was worth more than any life I took since then.  Worth more than every life I’ve taken, combined...and...after all this time, I still want to believe I was right.”

She said nothing.

“That was the first time.  The second time...the second time.  My second victim...”

I hesitated.  Her eyes were swollen and puffy, but her face was dry.

“...my second victim...I couldn’t feel.  I couldn’t.”

My deepest fear, come true...but there was one thing that still held true...if I had felt...if I had allowed any of the overwhelming emotion from that day to touch me...corrupt me...I looked her in the eye.

“I would have killed me.”

“Yeah?”

Her voice was low, trembling with not fear, but anger.  Something about what I had said had pushed the wrong button.  She was quaking, too.  She was close, so close, to losing control...

...and she did, but not to her.  And even as she spat fire into the night I knew she didn’t mean it, that it was just measly words thrown in a fit of anger, that if she had said anything else I would brush it off as easily as dust in the wind...but two words.  Two words set fire to a boiling, crushing, thrashing sea of blood...

“Who was it?”

...You...

No reason.

...you even think yourself worthy...

Just look at her, standing there, defiant, foolish...

...to even think of him...

No sense.

...spitting in the face of a pony infinitely your greater...

...so naïve, so stupid, so gullible...

...a pony you would be blessed to hold an unlit candle to...

No restraint.

...when you don’t even deserve to know his name.

No mercy.

“Your dog?”

Her face made a satisfying thunk smashing into the bubble’s wall.  Her neck was soft, and her mind had become brittle through fear’s constant wearing.  Both would be easy to break, so easy...I tried to drown out the blood thundering through my ears, my mind, and I fought the urge, but it snarled and hissed, howled and lashed out.  Primal, feral, and deadly.

The hunter’s instinct..

...the only part of Ventus I had left.

Ventus.

I drew a breath, held it, and found peace in my storm.

Ventus.

“Don’t.  You.  Dare.”

I pressed harder, robbing her of the air to speak, and in a few moments the air to breathe.  Her limbs flailed in protest, but they had no force behind them.  I leaned in.

“If you ever disrespect him again, I will end you.  He was a greater pony than you’ll ever know, and if you ever...ever...insult him again, I will not hesitate.”

I shoved off with force just short of snapping her neck, and took up a position far enough back that she would know I was not about to kill her, but close enough that she knew I still could long before she could react.  She had every right to kill me, but if she was going to insult him like that, disrespect him, then Celestia and Luna protect her, because no one else can.  Not from me.

She pushed herself up, breathing heavily and rubbing her neck with something of a stunned air.  An air distinctly more stunned than the other time I’d threatened her—so she’d expected it then.  Small, but warm comfort.  A wound so scarred over that even she couldn’t see it...

“I’m—” she coughed, then stopped and looked up at me.  It was pitiful, really, and I could smell the apology she’d just swallowed.  See?  She was toughening up already.

“Get the point?” I growled, daring her to make a move.  She nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off me.  She was outclassed and she knew it, but that wouldn’t stop the righteous fury from seething.

And seethe it did.  We locked eyes in silent contest, and I pictured mine; cold and dead, grey and hollow.  Hers, burning and vindictive, violet and charged with vengeance.  I knew she was searching, desperately, for that tiny little spot of gold she’d tunnel visioned on when we first met.  That miniscule ray of light whose existence proved that even I, a heartless murderer, was not beyond...redemption.

Her eyes swam in and out of focus, obscured by a tingling light, and I saw her, for the first time.  Violet Lotus.  Naïve to a fault.  The believer in everypony, the seeker of golden hearts.  That what was kept her from exploding in the orphanage.  She knew that the place was depressing only because of its nature, and not because anypony made or wanted it so.  But here I was, an open challenge to her beliefs, evidence that there was a point of no return, and she was struggling with the truth.

Just what did it mean?  She knew I killed so I could save Whimsy, give her a clean shot to make a difference.  That was the good she was seeing.  But we both knew that a life is a life, and it was only my word that made Whimsy’s life worth more than my victims’.  And now she knew I never stopped to grieve; all I ever did was close their eyes.  Between those two, it was hard to deny that I had chosen to take some dark ways...and that was what was eating her.  Just one simple question.

Was I a good pony, or a bad one?

Hate to break it to you, Violet, but there’s a lot of colors outside black and white, and I am definitely some shade of grey.  A darker shade.

I could almost see the storm inside her head, raging, agitated clouds pouring rain, and of course, that one, revelatory stroke of lightning.  She may not be able to answer the question, but she knew now where she had tread.  And she knew never to tread there again, or she would never tread again.  She didn’t stand a chance.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “For the...dog thing.  That...I went too far.”

My blood crystallized.  “It’s okay.  You didn’t know.”

“I just...I don’t know who you are anymore,” she mumbled.  “I know you only kill because you have to, for your sister, but you...you...”

“I failed,” I said quietly.  “Any target I accepted couldn’t have foals or children of any kind.  There wasn’t any evidence that Ebony or Ivory had one, let alone two.  I have to admit, they did a damn good job of hiding you.”

“Or they abandoned me,” she said, eyes growing wide with the horrific revelation.

“They didn’t.”

Out of the shadows stepped Luna, followed by an enormous set of green scales and two molten-gold eyes.  Violet squeaked and backpeddled so fast she bounced off the wall.

“W—what?”

“They did not abandon you,” repeated Descant.  “While they declined to give me certain details of their plan, I have inferred much.  They arranged their own deaths, through me, that their souls would escape to a waiting vessel.”

And from a spine on his neck, he withdrew two necklaces.  One black, one white.

“As they instructed me specifically to ask for their amulets upon their death, I can only assume that these are said vessels, and that they intended them to end up in your possession, Seer.”

Fear and confusion were shunted aside in favor of awe.  She didn’t even react to Descant calling her Seer.  Violet took the necklaces reverently, as though they were made of frozen glass, brittle enough to shatter on the slightest application of force.

“Why did they need Zephyr...?”

Luna stepped in.  “I am not certain, but I would guess that if they attempted to perform the transfer themselves, via suicide, their souls would instead cave, or fold in on themselves, and defeat the purpose of the act.  Given a choice, they likely chose Zephyr because her methods are both clear and merciful.”

“I thought you managed everypony’s soul,” I said quietly.

“In hearts of stars, not of stone.”

“What I could not divine was the amulet’s purpose,” Descant said.  “But you are certainly better equipped than I for that issue.”

Violet slipped the necklaces over her head, to join with the silver ring.  They clanked together softly, with the soft tinkling of wind chimes, and they incessantly continued to do so.  Violet’s gaze dropped to them so often it almost looked like I actually had broken her neck.  At least until she raised her head and squarely met Descant’s gaze.

“Thank you.”

“There is one other thing,” the dragon continued.  “There is a pony who goes by the name of Crimson Lotus.  He is your—”

“—brother, I know,” she said.

“No, Violet.  I believe your term for it is uncle.”

The necklaces...Descant had just forked them over.  Violet hadn’t even asked...

“You knew,” I growled in sudden realization.   “You both knew.”

“So I did,” said Descant.

“I did not,” said Luna.

I whirled on the dragon.  Luna had already admitted that her connection to the Calamus was conveyed through whims and hunches at best.  Intuition.  And there was no reason for her to lie, nor any evidence that she had.  Of course the best evidence of a good deception was none at all, but Luna’s recount of Holly had fit everything I’d known about her.  Including Dad’s necklace...

Which just left Descant, sitting there, smug, implaccable, pompous...

“Just thought you’d have a little fun, eh?”

“You wound me, Zephyr.  I take no pleasure in manipulation.  The two ponies were adamant that I perform, and even more adamant that I hire you, specifically.  They claimed failure to do so could result in, at best, a war, at worst, mass genocide.”

“And you just believed them?”

He looked me carefully in the eye.  “Placing my faith in ponies has paid off far more often than not, Zephyr.  This is a mistake many dragons make, out of fear, prejudice, the illusion of a primal superiority.”

Something hit me.  “You do know my real name.”

He looked momentarily stunned.  “What of it?”

“Nothing.  I’ve just...you’ve never used it before.  But just what made you believe them?”

“Knowledge of another plot to kill them.”

“I—what?”

“The Starweaver has already informed you of their abilities, yes?”

Luna, of course.  “She has.”

“The dragons were equally aware of them, and there were those who knew, with the proper leverage, they could sway the council into approving the merger.  A council of that size could not be moved to convene at a different time, and they could not simply fail to present, or the council would be forced to make its decision without them.”

I nodded slowly.  “And if they did get assassinated by dragons...”

“There would be no hiding that their unrequited killers were dragons, and a war would not be far behind.  Whereas—”

“—if I killed them, everyone would know it wasn’t dragons.”

“Precisely.  Your methods are well-known enough to achieve that.”

“So they were subverting a war, then.”

“In one scenario, yes,” Descant said.  “As they said, the other outcome was likely mass genocide.”

“Of who?”

“Those that chose not to strike first.”

“Clever,” Luna said.  “They gave their lives to protect us...they may have known you were also, in a way, working for us, Zephyr.  Their refusal of an escort...if they had one, they might have captured you, and crippled your ability to act outside the law.”

“It does make sense,” I said.  “But still...”

I looked up at them both.  Luna.  Descant.  Neither was prone to manipulation of others...which could be just what they wanted me to think.  The same for it all making sense.  But the latter read my mind.

“I apologize for the deception, Zephyr, but it was necessary.”

“So it seems.”  If it was all a grand scheme of some sort, all evidence was that it went higher than both of them, and both Ebony and Ivory.  What Descant had asked was remarkably lacking in detail—critical to any fine manipulation—and if Luna wanted to manipulate me, she would’ve been infinitely better off using Dad’s necklace as leverage instead of gambling on me to feel like I owed her.  But if it was Princess Celestia, then why did it all seem to revolve around the Calamus, whose only remaining link was with Luna, and Luna alone?

This didn’t make sense.  Either Luna was manipulating things against her own will, or there was a much greater unseen force at work.  How else would Violet end up with me...

“If you two are manipulating me...”

“I am not,” Luna said flatly.

“As you have completed that job, my role as the manipulator is over, as well,” Descant said.  “As far as I am aware, the Progenitor has involved you and I in none of her grandmaster chess gambits, either.”

I looked around at Limbo.  “Then it only leaves this...because this is too coincidental.  And how did you get here, anyways, Descant?”

“The shrine called,” he said.  “As I finished my...work, it called out, and I answered.”

Probably the same way it’d called to me and Deluge, and now me and Violet...but Whimsy had been with Deluge.  Another pair.  So who was he with?  It had to be that other pony...Sterling?

Either way I didn’t need to know about his work.  Not my business.  What was...

“No signs of Lucifa?”

“Unfortunately unlucky.  You?”

“Glimpses.  Nothing concrete yet.”

Luna looked around.  “I see no signs, either.”

“Back to square one, it seems,” said Descant.

“I never left square one,” I grumbled.  “All I learned is what she looks like without color, and a fat lotta good that’s going to do me.”

“How did you see her?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t know.  The shrine was sending me to the Everfree when I did.  It’s...this shrine.  It just...I don’t know, it...just knows.  Violet,” I said suddenly, and she looked over her shoulder without a word.  “What brought you three to the shrine?  How did Deluge end up with you?”

Her head drooped slightly as she mulled it over.  Given the circumstances, I really couldn’t hold it against her if she chose not to answer.  But then again, what reason was there to not?  She had to know by now that without a contract, I would go to every extreme I had to to avoid needless deaths...and really, it was too convenient.

Three ponies just show up out of the blue.  One a remarkably similar weathermare, one the icon of collateral damage, and...what would the last one be?  More importantly, who was behind all this...?

If it wasn’t Luna, Descant, or Celestia, then it could only be the Calamus...

...and...and...

“It’s her.”

All eyes—even Violet’s—snapped to me.  I ignored her probing purple eyes.

“It’s Lucifa.  She’s pulling all the strings, she...she...orchestrated your arrival, Violet.  Yours and Deluge’s and Sterling’s.  And mine, Whimsy’s, Descant’s...I need a word with her.  Just manipulating us like that...”

“I’m not so sure,” Luna murmured uncertainly, almost to herself.

“No, it all makes sense,” I insisted.  “I mean unless she is trying to deceive us, too, but...”

The dragon shook his head.  “It would not be like her.  No, I think there is another force at work.  One much more prone to deception, and one you have encountered her more than a few times.”

“Dust.”

The corners of his mouth curled; I kept forgetting that wasn’t actually her name.  “A name most apt for one so...capricious.  She would like that name, but I feel it is only proper manners that you know hers.”

He drew a slow breath and released it even slower.  The name seemed to get caught in his throat, like it was fighting to stay unknown the whole way.  More evidence that she was the cataclysm...

“Mélange.  The Valkyrie.”

I couldn’t resist leering at him.  “Your name for her.”

“Yes.  But of course, therein lay another question; if she is indeed leading you along a path, then what is her connection to the Calamus?  Why is she able to guide you as no one else can?”

“If she has Lucifa’s magic...”

“Mélange?” Luna repeated, a little belatedly.  “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”  He answered without looking at her, and in the oddest, most off-kilter voice I’d ever heard him use.  “It is not a name many know, so I must warn you.  If you reveal your knowledge of it, she will retaliate, and not kindly.”

Understandably.  Who’d want a name like that, honestly?  At least Dust sounds cool.  Mélange sounds like your throat’s half-full of honey or something.  Then again, he had also called her the Valkyrie...

But whatever it meant, if he was bringing it up, I could be sure it was indicative of something pivotal.  Especially because of just one, singularly odd thing.  The twin sisters only seemed to know what Dust had done, and anything beyond that was a calculated guess at best.  Yet, Descant...Descant knew her real name, her title, and most surprisingly, her nature.

And even if he had given her that title, the few times I’d encountered her had proved her nature was as fickle as the wild sky.  The first one, the day I’d ambushed Ebony and Ivory, Dust had been there, in the dragon council.  If not a part of it, then a subject of it.  How or why she was involved was curious enough, but she had been subdued then.  A victim.

The next time had been at Riverside, when she’d lowered the rippling wall as no one else, apparently not even Canzonetta, could.  But her behavior that time had been casual, polite.  She’d even thanked the Caelum guards for protecting her.

Then something darker.  Her purpose there was to meet Canzonetta before her death, and sap the magic of life from the dragon as she departed.  I had no doubts as to what Dust’d taken from her that day.  There was nothing else, no other magic, she could have taken; all of that had gone to Deluge, and thanks to the Canzonetta’s memories, she would’ve noticed if it had fallen short.  But...

It was all connected.  Through the Calamus, through whatever interventions and methods it used, and apart from Dust, there was one common theme between both expeditions.  Neither had been the start of anything, really, but the continuation of something that had already occurred.  Something Dad had mentioned at the start of this one...

“The end.”

“I beg your pardon?” Luna and Descant said, accidentally synchronized.  It sounded especially weird because Violet, still without a word, had began shuffling around the outer edge.  Slowly and deliberately, like she was trying to shave ice.

“Last time.  I was with a pegasus, Deluge.  She’d imagined a perfect life after her wedding.  An end to her story.  But instead she’s thrown into a new one, and now she has a whole new story to write.

“And this time.  I thought I was done with that job.  Finished.  The end.  But now this...thing shoves Violet in my face.  The job was done, sure.  Story over.  But Violet...she’s proof that there is life beyond the end, and a brand-new story to go with it.”

“That does seem to be...stretching,” Descant commented.

“Maybe, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than anything else.  It works with Dust, too.  She’s the calamity, but those don’t come from nowhere.  No, she’s part of a completely different story.  Her own.  And she’s looking for the end.  That’s what the Calamus wants.”

Luna frowned.  “I cannot say I follow...”

“It’s all about the end,” I said.  “None of them, not a single one, had just one story to their name.  They all came after the end of something.  Violet, after the end of her parents’ lives.  Deluge, after the end of a fluid romance.  Dust, after the end of...some great tragedy.”

I paused.

“And even me.  I’m here after the end of all my jobs, after the end of my parents, after the end of every incident...”

“So it wants you to learn there is life after death.”  Descant frowned with the dampened sound of grating steel.  “How trite.”

“No.  Death is not the end.  That’s the point.  Something happens after every story, even after you think it’s ended, when you think it’s dead.  That’s what it wants me to learn.  Flicker said it, too.” The dragon’s malevolent voice of innocence rang in my head, clear as a crystal bell toll.  “‘Perception alone creates time, a beginning, and an end.’  Which, if she’s right, means...”

“...The end is but an illusion,” Descant murmured.  “Now that is much more poignant.”

Luna nodded in silent agreement, lost in thought, and something occurred to me.

“But if it is all about the end...then maybe what I’m looking for isn’t Lucifa, but what came after her end.”

“Perhaps,” Descant said sadly.  “As much as it pains me to admit it, there is little evidence she will return.  Windraker, you know what to do...”

I brushed the name aside; the dragon wasn’t always changing his given titles, but then he didn’t any problem with it if he thought it was appropriate.  Windraker almost definitely came from using wind to pick Ebony and Ivory off of Melisma’s back.  “Of course.  But even if she did leave, it’s not the end of her.  It’s not.  She left something behind.”

“A memory,” Luna said quietly.

“No,” I said, looking up at the mountain of green scales.  He had raised his head, his sheer size hiding his eyes.  But a tiny droplet of water ran down his side, a rainbow in a bead, and even Violet’s agitated shuffling ground to a halt when his tear hit the ground.  “A legacy.  But you want to know if there’s more to it than that...more to what’s left of her.”

I paused.

“...and I do, too.”

There was nothing but a confused curiosity on his face when he looked down.

“This.”  I gestured to the bubble.  “All of this...if this is really her doing...I think I understand why you want to know.  You want to know if she left us anything other than a legend, a stone, and some hazy memories...”

If she had left any inheritance meant to be ours...just like...

“Dad left my goggles, his coin, his enchanted clouds,” I said quietly.  “Just material things, but to me...to me they’re so much more.  In a way...” I couldn’t help a chuckle.  “In a way, they’re his foals, too.  Neither one of us would be here if it wasn’t for him...and..you feel the same way about Lucifa.”

“Yes.”  He half-nodded, pausing for a sigh that was anything but melodramatic.  “Yes, I do.”

“Then I need to know how she began,” I said.  “How she came to be.  An end is just a beginning upside down.”

“To the contrary.  Her end is our beginning.”

“And whose end was her beginning?”

“That is a mystery that remains resolutely unsolved.”

I nodded.  “So that’s what’s next.”

“Perhaps not,” Descant said.  “I refrained from sharing that assumption in the hopes you might find something less founded on hope.”

“Oh, the irony.”

He managed a small grin.  “Indeed.”

“Coincidentally,” Luna said with a smile.  “It seems a good place to start.”

“Not many choices.  And where is it?”

“I’ve yet to meet anybody that knows,” Luna said.  “Any manuscripts on her origin that I’ve found were calculated guesses at best.  Some proposed she was simply a result of countless years of elemental turmoil, of chaos, that was before she gave it order, structure.  Most seemed convinced she came from another dimension entirely.”

Never a straight answer.  “Might be a problem if she did.  And I still don’t know where to start looking.”

“The ancient cities,” Descant said, and, upon seeing me confused, clarified.  “In the olden days, four cities served as sanctuary for all; Haven, Atlantis, Aeolia, and Animus.  Between the four of them, they could provide any living creature with the essentials, if not more.”  His tone shifted to one of muted sadness.  “Of course, with Equestria and the birth of the divine, the need for such cities is dead, and time has found them little but ruins.”

“Aeolia?”

A glint of his steely teeth appeared.  “Quite.  These cities amassed large populations, and in doing so they also accumulated a considerable wealth of medeis vitae—life magic, if you will, though that is a liberal interpretation—moreso than any other place on the planet.”

“So what good does that do me?”

Luna looked slightly dazed, her eyes glazed over with memories years old.  “All life came from Lucifa if you trace it far enough,” she said clearly.  “If you are able to discern a pattern in the lingering traces, you will likely find her.”

Descant’s list stirred another question, but it was irrelevant, for the time being.  There was a different question I had to ask, even if I already had an answer. “How am I supposed to find a pattern in something I can’t see, feel?”

“If I knew, there would be no need for this quest,” Descant said.  “You might be able to find both her end and her beginning if you find the right perspective.”

Perspective, eh?  So even in all his grandeur he hadn’t discerned Whimsy’s sleight...

“Noted.”  I sighed.  “Well, it’s a start, I guess.”  Four massive cities like that couldn’t be hard to pinpoint.  I already had a vague idea of where Aeolia was, and Atlantis was famed for being the city lost to the seas, but the other two were new.  If they really were beacons of any kind of magic, though, Whimsy would be able to find them with relative ease.  The Calamus had to pair us this time...

Luna’s head snapped up.  Her eyes were shut, her horn ablaze, her mouth moving soundlessly.  I glanced at Descant; he looked as confused as I was, but he shook his head slightly.  Don’t interrupt.

Whatever she princess was doing, she was no longer with us.  Violet’s agitated shuffling had grown ever louder, and Descant had taken to shifting around so much it looked like someone had burned his scales.  That alone was interesting; the only thing I could think of was Dust.  Just talking about her for whatever reason set his scales on edge, moreso than anything else I’d ever seen get to him.

And yet Luna was completely unaware of the ungainly combination of scuffling scales and scratching hooves.  Interesting.

What was even more interesting was when her magic spiraled off her horn and curled into various arcane runes above her.  A few were Draconic, but majority weren’t, and didn’t seem to be from the same language, either; the Draconic ones were mostly circular, but there was rectangular, triangular, and ones that seemed to be miniature pictographs.  Admittedly it wasn’t odd at all for her to know ancient languages, but it was odd was that she was stuck in some dream state recalling them now, of all times.

Several overlapping voices churned to life, utterly indistinguishable from one another; Luna nodded slowly, still muttering.  She continued like that for a while, and when she finished, the voices and runes vanished instantly.

“What is it?” asked Descant, to no avail.  Luna gave him a tiny shake of her head.  Don’t.

“I must think on this.  In the meantime, Zephyr—you need to find what’s left undone.”

The princess found two blank faces staring back at her.

“What’s left undone,” she repeated.  “The last time I spoke to Lucifa, she thought it likely she would be unable to finish what she’d began.  I, in all my wisdom, tried to convince her otherwise, but she didn’t listen.  She said that of all the things she had made, she was proudest of whatever it was she’d left unfinished, something that would outlive her, and outlast her end.  ”

“You don’t know what it is, do you?”

“No.  Of course not.  She was fond of letting us discover on our own.”

“Something for us to finish,” I muttered.  “What’s left undone...for us to finish?”

“But of course...” Descant began, and we all finished it with him.

“What could it be?”

Not a legacy.  You can’t finish a legacy.  Forget it, hail it, pass it on, sure.  But not finish.  What, then, could it be?  Something that had to grow on its own?

“It might not be just one thing,” I said darkly.

“It may have something to do with something she taught all of us...” Luna mused.

“Which is?”

“‘There is no shame in being who you are.’”

“Sure,” I grumbled.  “Unless you ruin other ponies’ lives just for fun.  Lots of shame in that, apparently.”  Wasn’t exactly helpful in the first place.  There was only one thing I could think of that combined what’s left undone and be yourself, and that was completely out of the question.  Never in a million years.

“You didn’t do it for fun,” Descant said sharply.  “You did it for your kin.  The Ghostwriter.”

I paused.  I hadn’t really thought about what he would call Whimsy.  “At first, yeah.  At first.  But after a while I...enjoyed it.  The challenge, the thrill, the hunt...all of it.  Walking a razor’s edge.”  I sighed.  “I enjoyed it...and I can’t hide that.”

“There is serene liberty in the hunt,” Descant said quietly.  “And if it is of any solace, the Forerunner was similar.”

Great, another title.  “The who?”

Luna was looking at him with a strange expression on her face.  “He would mean Captain Bolt...Holly.  A posthumously given title, if I’m not mistaken.”

“It was...apropos,” he confided in a low voice.  “In life she was the consummate professional, but underneath she was spirited.  Little lit her passion like a mission.  A single goal to achieve, countless ways to get there, and constraints to make it all the more challenging.  A puzzle.  There was only one thing I could think to call her, and she wore it with a pride she would never confess.”

He peered down his snout at me.

“The Skybreaker.”

“You know her pretty well,” I said coldly.  “As you do Dust.”

“I have spent my share of time in their company, yes,” he said, and that was that.  His tone of voice made it exceedingly clear.  “All I will add is that both are exceptional ponies, and I am honored to have known them.”

“Have?” I repeated.  “Dust is still alive.”

“The one I knew met her end long ago.”

I brushed it aside.  “So how could something we have to finish be related to being who you are?”

Luna almost replied, but stopped for some reason.  I wasn’t sure why until Violet appeared around her flowing tail.  Descant breathed in sharply; I couldn’t blame him.  Violet did have a tendency to turn invisible.  Metaphorically.

“G-guys.”  She was shivering violently, and her shrouded eyes were darting about like something was about to attack her.  There was nothing else around us, not even anything magical besides Limbo—which itself had been harmless so far—but she had to be terrified of something.  And she knew so long as she didn’t insult him again, I wouldn’t lay a hoof on her.  “Gu-guys, I...I...”

She yelped and toppled in panic as Luna’s mane brushed against her side, and it took several moments of deep breathing to bring her back to coherence.  Just what in Tartarus had spooked her?  There was nothing here.  Nothing.

Apparently Violet thought otherwise.

“Guys, I...”

Slowly, painstakingly, excruciatingly, like she would drop dead if she moved too fast, she lifted her gaze an inch, then another inch, then another, until finally...she was looking straight up, unable to speak.  There was still nothing of note up there.  Just the bubble of Limbo and all of its illusory stars.

But up there, up where the sky would have been, she saw something through her veil of magic, her magic that exposed the truth.  And though she spoke so softly I had to strain to hear her, her whispered words sent silent shockwaves thundering through Limbo and us alike.

“...I think something’s watching us.”

End of Arc 2

— « § » —

Song of a Half-Hearted Feather

“One being, one soul, from earth arose

Given a curse, a blessing, was she.

One ruthless heart of gold, she goes

To rejoin that which cannot be.

“The light, the truth, it dawns

Sears a scar that ne’er fades.

Mother, father, faith foregone

To th’night she turns, betrayed.

“Palest moon, silent skies

‘Tis not long ‘fore the end, it looms.

Anger, sorrow, cast aside

In her path is naught but ruins.

“Ancient ring, fractured mind

Ling’ring ‘choes and dust, has she.

Firstborn kin, shattered kind

In the darkest dusk, she sees.”

— Timid Thunder, the Golden Warden

Preface (Read me first!)

[Prelude 1] Pony Up and to the Skies

Prelude 1

— « § » —

Pony Up and to the Skies

— « § » —

Master Table of Contents

Changelog

[Arc 2] Into a Land of Reflections

Arc 2

— « § » —

Into a Land of Reflections

— « § » —

Master Table of Contents

Changelog